Salt & Leather, Iron & Lace
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: Summary: By Steam & Iron 'verse. AU. Steampunk. John has found a new life in the village of Blue Earth, under the tutelage of experienced hunters and his boys are growing up in the life. Nothing is easy and the learning curve of a hunter is no exception but he's determined to keep them together, come what may. No slash, no spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

* * *

_**May, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

The wild garden was still in the early morning light, dew sparkling on long grass and beaded like diamonds along the cobwebs that filled the little-travelled gaps between the trees and shrubs.

Overhead, a wide sky arched, pale robin's egg blue, empty and cloudless, foretelling another warm day. Standing together at the far end of the expanse of overgrown lawn, John and Dean looked at the line of bottles set along the remains of the drystone wall, their expressions identically thoughtful.

"You ready?" John asked his son, stepping back slightly, watching Dean's brows draw together in a concentrated frown.

"Yeah."

He watched closely as the boy resettled the stock of the .22 against his shoulder, and wondered uneasily what Mary would've said if she'd seen what they were doing.

The flat crack of the rifle was punctuated by Dean working the bolt, loading, moving the barrel sight to the next target and shooting, the faint tinkle of smashed glass barely audible.

_Ten for ten_, John noted, glancing at his watch. _And smooth and fast_.

"Good job," he said when the last bottle exploded into fragments and Dean lowered the gun. "Get the cartridge casings. We need to clean these before you go to school."

Dean nodded and checked that the chamber was empty, dropping to his knees and picking up the spent brass casings and putting them in his pocket. The drill was well-known now, though his father reminded him every single time.

Walking back together through the wet grass, John looked up at the tall house. It was home now, as much as any place could be. The only home his youngest knew, he realised with a small spurt of surprise. As Millie was the only mother Sammy could remember.

He looked down at the boy hurrying along beside him. Dean had adapted to the place easily, he thought, and to the discipline of the life into which he and the boys had been thrust. He hadn't told either boy the reasons for leaving Lawrence, and he thought that even for Dean, the memories of the town had faded, dissolved beneath the day-to-day living here. Both had already absorbed the broad outlines of what he was doing here, Dean more practically, learning weaponry and about the creatures that he and Jim and Abely periodically left to hunt, Sam still somewhat protected from the hands-on applications of the hunter's life as yet.

Millie had been a god-send, her cheerful and constant presence in the house, even when he was away, stabilising the boys' life and giving them as much of normal as was possible.

"Wash up before breakfast," Millie's voice drifted out of the kitchen into the mud-room as they came in through the back door, and Dean's face lifted to John's with a knowing smile.

Smiling back, John nodded. "Breakfast first, then do the guns, Dean," he said, setting the lever-action down on the cupboard by the sink.

"Yes, sir," Dean responded quickly, putting his .22 beside the bigger rifle and kicking the footstool over. They washed their hands and dried them, and walked quickly into the kitchen as Millie set the loaded plates on the table.

"Eat fast, John," Abely said as he walked into the kitchen and kissed Millie in passing. "Got a heads-up 'bout a haunting in Iowa and we can head out as soon as you're ready."

"A haunting?" Dean's head snapped up to look at the older man. "What kind?"

John gave his partner a slightly rueful glance as he met Abely's eyes above his son's head.

"Not sure yet, kid," Abely said, sitting down at the end of the table and picking up his knife and fork. "Four people dead, reports are kind of thin."

"Who's the tip from?" John asked through a mouthful of bacon.

"Peggie Coulson." Abely gestured vaguely with his fork. "Runs a bar in Humboldt, we'll stop there first. Time you got to know some other folks in this business."

"Can I come?" Dean swivelled around in his chair to look at his father. "I'll be able to help."

John shook his head, hiding a smile as he looked down at his plate. "Nope, you've got school."

"School!"

"Yeah, school," Millie said, walking over to stand behind him and ruffling the short-cut dark hair. "When you get a report card that's nothing but 'A's' then you can talk about going hunting with your dad."

Dean ducked his head away from her hand, scowling at his plate. "Like that's gonna happen."

Millie looked at John and grimaced. "You got the brain for it, Dean, you just don't put in the work."

Dean looked at Abely mulishly. "Do I need to know what the capital of Guatemala is to do what you and Dad do?"

"Well," Abely said, tucking his food into one cheek as he looked back at the boy thoughtfully. "You might, lotta monsters down south, you'd look like an idiot if you couldn't find your way there 'cos you didn't know where it was, wouldn't you?"

"When can I go with you?" Dean ignored the unsatisfactory answer and looked at his father.

"We'll see," John hedged, wiping his plate with the remains of his bread. "Millie's right about school, Dean. You pick up your game there and we'll talk about it."

Sam wandered into the room, pyjamas drooping and hair sticking out in every direction. "Did I sleep too late again?"

* * *

Watching Abely's hybrid vehicle pull out of the long drive with a belch of black smoke, Dean leaned his head against the cool glass of the window and sighed. He could break down the weapons as fast as his father, could shoot whatever he aimed at, had helped on two salt'n'burns now, holding the light mostly, but still … he'd been there, seen the wind rise as the men had dug up the grave and thrown in the salt, had warned them and dropped the match into the alcohol-soaked grave himself … he wasn't a baby, he could do the job.

"Dean, you're gonna be late!"

Millie's voice rose up the stairs and he pushed himself off the window seat, looking around for the battered leather satchel he used for a book bag. Sammy would be starting school next year, and he just knew he was gonna be lumped with his little brother's care on the walk there and back and at the small, clapboard building. The last couple of years he'd been able to stop at Uncle Jim's on the way home, and the priest had been teaching him about the different types of things that were out there, in the dark. He was sure that would stop once he had to baby-sit Sammy again.

"Dean!"

"Coming!" he yelled over the banister, thumping down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor.

"No stopping at Jim's today," Millie said as he used the newel post to sling-shot himself into the hallway.

"Why not?"

"Because it's your brother's birthday today and with your dad gone, we need to make it special for him."

_Damn_. He'd forgotten the date. He nodded his agreement, only a little reluctantly, and opened the front door, turning to look back at the woman standing behind him.

"See you later."

"Be safe," she responded, the same way as she always did, every, single day. He didn't like to admit it, not even to himself, but the words, the regular ritual, satisfied something in him, a craving for something to remain the same, perhaps. He nodded and walked onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him.

Sammy's birthday. He hadn't gotten him anything, he realised as he ran down the steps and hurried along the gravelled road toward the tiny town, the leather bag bouncing against his side.

"Hey!"

The voice was unfortunately familiar, and Dean slowed down, reminding himself that he wasn't allowed to fight, except in self-defence. He wondered if he could get the retards following him to take the first swing.

"Hey, rookie's kid!"

Stanley Belthorpe. Number one pain in the butt in the otherwise fairly ordinary little school. Son of one of the other hunters in town.

Stopping at the side of the road, Dean looked around, seeing the little gang of three walking toward him.

"Your dad's gonna buy it if he keeps hanging out with that loser, Thompson," Ricky Morton called out, swaggering beside his friends.

"Isn't your dad laid up with a broken leg right now, Ricky?" Dean asked, one eyebrow lifting.

"Everyone gets injured on hunts," Stan retorted. "Thompson is a nutbag. He's gotten three partners killed and that's just so far."

Dean studied the boys thoughtfully. "Now I know why you three hang out together," he said, a faint smirk playing around his mouth. "None of you are smart enough to figure out how to get your clothes on by yourselves."

Stan's face turned a bright shade of brick-red and he took a step closer. "You're going to be laughing out the other side of your mouth when you got no mom and no dad!"

Dean looked at him steadily. "You worry about your own family, Stan," he said, gesturing broadly at the road that led to the school, watching as they sidled past him. "Abely's a better hunter than your dad'll ever be."

"That's what you think!" Terence yelled back at him, hurrying after his friends.

"Wow, have to remember that one," Dean called out derisively after him.

He walked slowly after them, brows drawn together and eyes on the ground. He'd asked Millie about it, when the kids had first started making comments. It was true, she'd told him. Abely had lost three partners but it hadn't been because of his skills and knowledge, she'd been quick to tell him. Hunting was hard, and people who didn't pay attention, to everything, could get hurt or killed. He'd asked her why the boys' fathers were so against Abely and she'd turned away at that, ruffling his hair and changing the subject. He had the distinct impression that she'd known why, and that it'd had something to do with her. He also got the impression that she wasn't ever going to tell him.

It didn't matter. None of the kids could fight worth a damn and while he'd gotten into trouble for the first few fights, they weren't prepared to tackle him again. That left them with their dumb insults and those he didn't give a rat's ass about.

The school was in between the last building on the main street and the fork in the road where Jim Murphy's church sat, and he walked into the building with a bunch of other kids. The town was mostly civilians, people making a living however they could, protected by the hunters who lived there, and catering to them wherever possible. Catching sight of Hum, he walked over to the tall, broad-shouldered boy, dropping his bag on the ground and crouching down as Hum lifted a hand, showing off the two perfect milk-white shooters.

"What you'd do to the vermin?" Hum asked him as he passed him one of the marbles.

"Not much," Dean said, looking at the line up and calculating the distance, angle, ground imperfections and power required. "Where'd you get these?"

"Mason's uncle had a whole bagful in his basement," Hum replied, brows lifting as he watched Dean's strike. "Only found 'em last weekend and it took me three games to win 'em."

"Take me one to get 'em off you," Dean said, sliding a sideways glance at his friend.

"Not a hope," Hum said, shaking his head. "You're too full of fizz to make a clean shot now."

"Sez you. Watch me!"

* * *

_**Humboldt, Iowa**_

John looked at the deserted street uneasily, his fingers curled around the grip of the gun in his pocket.

"Not much of a town for nightlife," he commented as Abely walked up to him.

"No, most folks here keep themselves indoors from nightfall," Abely agreed. "Come on, it's down the next alley."

John walked beside him, aware that he was straining to see what was in the black shadows between the corners of the misshapen buildings, under the elevated rail lines and pedestrian bridges that criss-crossed the dark streets like spider's webs, straining to hear any sound he couldn't identify immediately. Every one of the ground-level doors he could see was thick, sheet iron, bolted and welded and painted over with a variety of symbols. It wasn't a reassuring sight.

Abely gestured to a narrow opening between two leaning buildings and he wheeled into the alley after him, looking warily around as they stopped in front of a heavy, iron door. Knocking once, Abely smiled when a small panel in the door slammed open, a pair of bright blue eyes peering out at them.

"Password?"

"Two rabbits fucking," the big hunter said, and John blinked at the harsh creak of the bolts being drawn back on the inside, the raw screak of unoiled metal hinges complaining as the door swung open.

He followed Abely inside, glancing back at the door-keeper. The viewing slot had been at their own eye-level, but the man who'd opened the door for them was a good foot shorter than either of them, and looking down, John saw the heavy timber footstool as the man replaced it beside the closed door. Taped to the inside of the door next to the slot, a thick card showed two rabbits energetically engaged in copulation and he looked a question at the hunter beside him.

"Just a simple psychic trick," Abely said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'll show you later. It's only necessary to prove we're human – monsters can't get it, not even shifters."

He turned away and walked down the dark hallway, and John followed him, looking at the half-seen shapes and drawings on the walls to either side, guards and wards and sigils of protection. Half of them he couldn't recognise, others he knew well. He hesitated as Abely started down a flight of stairs, then started down after him, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.

"What the hell –?" he breathed out loud as they came through the archway at the bottom of the stairs and stepped into a long, wide room, cheerfully lit by gas-lamp sconces along the walls and glowing, golden candle-lit chandeliers over the main floor.

"Welcome to Peg's," Abely said from the corner of his mouth as he walked into the room.

Along the long walls, polished timber and velvet-upholstered booths provided quiet and private seating, while the centre of the room held tables, small and large, and a long, gleaming bar of ebony ran the width of the room. Behind it, a wide variety of coloured bottles held the bootleg alcohol that was one of the uses for the larger crops of corn, potatoes, barley and the ancient orchards that were spread around the rich farmland. The bottles were reflected in a long mirror, running the full length of the bar, the metal backing giving the reflection a flat silver tint.

John followed Abely across the room, watching the older hunter as he nodded to the people seated at the tables, smiling or throwing a comment as they passed, more relaxed in the crowd than John had ever seen him.

In Blue Earth, Abely was something of a pariah in the small hunting community. Both Millie and Jim had told him the various stories of how that'd come to be, and he'd seen for himself that most of the trouble coming from the other hunting families in the town was due to a combination of jealousy and ignorance. Even so, he found himself surprised by Abely's easy affability in this place.

"Peggie, sweetheart," the hunter said as he stood by the bar, talking to a tall, black woman, whose arresting features were made more dramatic by the short, bone-white cap of curls that covered her finely-shaped skull. "Want you to meet John Winchester."

Peg Coulson looked at him from across the width of the black wood, smiling slightly. Her dark eyes were speculative, he thought, smiling back and offering his hand. Understandably. Her grip was a lot firmer than he'd expected and his surprise must have shown on his face because the smile widened, touching her eyes and crinkling them up a little.

"A pleasure to meet you, John," she said, her voice a deep, husky contralto. "Name your poison."

"Whiskey, if you have it," he said, leaning against the bar, flicking a glance at Abely.

"If we have it," she repeated mockingly. "Finest malt in the entire land. Water? Ice?"

"Neat."

She set the glass on the bar and he picked it up, inhaling the acrid scent and swallowing a mouthful, the smoothness shocking him. That must've shown as well, he thought deprecatingly as she nodded at him.

"Only the good stuff for friend's of Abely's."

"Peggie," Abely said, turning back to her and taking the glass she'd poured. "You seen Zekiel around tonight?"

"He was in the back room," she said, gesturing to the other end of the bar. "You doing a job with him?"

"Maybe," Abely allowed, tossing the rest of the drink and setting the empty glass on the bar. "Look after John for me."

"My pleasure," she said, pouring another shot into John's glass.

"Wait a minute," John swivelled on the bar stool. "Why the –?"

"Won't be long," Abely said with a shrug. "Have a little faith, John."

"Keep me company, John," Peg said from behind him. "I don't like to drink alone."

Turning back slowly, he picked up his glass. "What do we drink to?"

"How about making new friends?"

"Yeah," John muttered under his breath, lifting his glass. "I can drink to that."

* * *

John's hand slid under the pillow, closing around the cool ivory grips of the automatic there as the lock clicked open in the door to the room.

"Relax, just me," Abley's voice came out of the darkness.

Leaving his hand on the gun, John reached across to the nightstand, turning up the small gas flame until the room had brightened enough to see the other man's expression.

Abely closed the door and turned around, a one-sided grin on his face. "You feeling a little less tense now?"

John scowled at him. "You wanna tell me why you decided I was a ditchable date tonight?"

"Two reasons," Abely said casually, walking to the other bed and dropping his jacket and weapons on the end. "The first, you had to meet Peg, and convince her you were one of us."

"And a three-way conversation at the bar couldn't have done that?"

"No, Peggie, she likes to get hands-on," Abely said blithely. "Which was reason number two, you've been needing to let off some steam lately, wound up too tight to work properly –"

"Dammit, Abely, I'll make the decisions about my goddamned tension levels and what to do about them!"

"Don't get your panties in a twist," Abely admonished him mildly. "You gonna lie there and tell me you don't feel a lot more centred now?"

John looked away stubbornly. He wasn't going to tell the man any such thing. Wasn't going to lie barefacedly about it either.

"Heh, yeah, that's what I thought," Abely said with a knowing smile.

"So was the hunt all a ruse?"

"Nope, four dead in Jefferson," Abely said, pulling off his boots. "We'll head down there in the morning."

"And aside from Peg and the need to reduce my 'tension', why wasn't I included in that meeting?"

"Ah, well, Zeke and Frank aren't really all that sociable," Abely said as he pulled the covers back and settled himself on the bed. "Don't like strangers and take a while to get to know them."

"You gonna explain how they'll ever get to know me if I can't even meet 'em?" John asked sarcastically.

"In time, son," Abely said through a yawn. "All in good time. Turn the light off, wouldja?"

Looking at the man lying on the other bed, John resisted the impulse to throw something at him, turning over and turning down the flame until it was extinguished. He knew Abely now, pretty well. Knew he had reasons that he didn't often share, not at the time and sometimes not at all. He'd accepted that, for the most part.

And he wasn't going to lie to himself about the evening. He'd needed it, Abely'd had that right. Needed the release and the comfort and the connection to someone else, at once a simpler connection and yet a deeper one than friendship could give a man.

He lay back, stretching out a little with a self-satisfied exhale, feeling the heavy looseness of his muscles, not a single sore point of tension anywhere in him, and let his eyes close again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

_**Jefferson, Iowa**_

Nothing like a ward for the criminally insane to keep you on your toes, John thought, staring at the peeling paint and dull colours of the hallway, the constant muttering and wailing from several locked rooms a dirge of the damned he could've done without.

"Have any of the staff or patients reported feeling cold areas, in their rooms or in the common areas?" Abely asked the stiff-backed nurse standing behind her station.

"No, we had the heating fixed last winter," she said, looking disapprovingly at him. "What does that have to do with the murders?"

"There are a lot of small details that can help us ascertain precisely what's happened here, ma'am," Abely soothed. "What about reactions? Anyone said anything about disorientation, or irrational fear?"

She gave him a dry look. "This is a hospital for the mentally disturbed, Agent Frankton, all the patients and most of the staff periodically feel disoriented and irrationally afraid."

He smiled understandingly and only John caught the small tic at the corner of his eye. "Maybe feelings that were stronger than the usual?"

"Nothing really that stands out," she said, glancing at John. "We've had a lot more physical reactions, some of which didn't seem to have anything to do with – with what's happened here."

"Such as?"

"Heart palpitations, arrhythmia, several psychotic breaks in patients who are heavily medicated and normally under control," she said slowly, her brow furrowing as she tried to remember the variety of symptoms that both staff and patients had presented. "One of the doctors, Dr Ryerson, actually had the building checked for unshielded electro-magnetic fields, he was so concerned about the episodes."

Abely slid a sideways look at John and looked back to his notes. "Ma'am, we'd like to see the bodies first, then look over the ward."

"Of course," she said. "If you go to the common room at the end of the hall, you'll find Guy; he's an orderly and he'll take you down to the morgue."

"Thank you, ma'am," Abely nodded to her, tucking the notebook into his coat pocket.

"Agent Frankton."

He turned back to her, one brow raised. "Yes, ma'am?"

"It's a patient, isn't it? Someone getting out?" The worry in her voice was clear, and the stiff and formal mask she'd worn through the questioning had gone, replaced by genuine concern.

"We don't know yet, ma'am," Abely said gently. "But we will get to the bottom of it, and we will take care of whoever has done this."

"Thank you, sir," she said, and he watched her face tighten again into its usual no-nonsense lines.

Walking down the hall, John said, "EMF might be reading high, but it doesn't normally get high enough to hit the bio-electrical field of the body so dramatically?"

Abely nodded. "Whatever's here, it's powerful, or maybe there's more'n one, working in concert somehow."

"In a haunting?" John asked.

"Had a haunting in New Orleans where six unrelated ghosts were taking people from a hotel," Abely said, glancing at him wryly. "Local undertaker was stiffing the customers and burying folks in a single grave, one of top of the other, and the grave lay right alongside the hotel's boundary. Took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on."

"There's a cemetery on the grounds," John said, remembering the sight of the leaning tombstones behind the tiny chapel. "Do we dig them all up?"

"Let's hope not," Abely grimaced. "We'll see what the condition of the bodies tells us, and what kind of readings we get on the max security ward."

* * *

John looked at the bodies laid out on the four examination tables. The oldest was three days, the last two had been killed one day ago. He hadn't seen the work of many ghosts – or vengeful spirits, as Abely called them – but he didn't think that anything in the spirit world would have done this.

"What's missing?" Abely said tersely to the mortician.

"Internal organs, not all of them, but the liver, kidneys and the sweetbreads were removed from all of them."

"Sweetbreads?" John looked at him.

"Tongue, thymus, pancreas, testicles from the males," the man said, waving a hand in the direction of the bodies.

"The tasty bits," Abely said to John, jaw muscle twitching. "No one's found those remains anywhere in the hospital?"

The mortician shook his head. "And it's getting warmer," he added, mouth turning down in distaste. "We'd smell them if they were around."

"Any of the patients currently incarcerated for cannibalism?" John asked him, looking at the torn cavity in the body next to him.

"Not that I know of," he said, shaking his head. "You'd probably have to talk to one of the shrinks about that."

"No cutting tools were used to access the internal cavities?" Abely followed John's gaze.

"No," the man said, turning to the latest victim and pointing to the side. "Looks like it chewed through here, where the flesh is relatively unmuscled, and then used force to open the rest."

"That's a lot of force," John muttered, staring at the tear across the top of the abdomen.

"Yep." The mortician nodded. "You need anything else or can I put them away now?"

"No, we're done," Abely said, stepping back as the man went to the end of the table and began to rewrap the body shroud. He looked at John and gestured at the door, following the younger man out. Both took deep breaths once they were in the hallway, John lifting a hand and wiping the thin sheen of perspiration from his forehead.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but spirits don't eat people, right?" he said to his partner.

"No, they don't," Abely said, brow creased up. "Let's take a look at the ward."

* * *

The hotel room was small and dark and smelled faintly of dirty socks, John thought, rubbing a hand along his jaw and feeling the soft tangled beard of a few days' growth there.

"Mangled bodies. Massive EMF readings. No cold spots. Instant reactions to the body's bio-electrical field," Abely paced up and down the length of the room, coat-tails flying on each turn. "What's that tell us?"

John thought of the way their meters had flat-lined, deep into the red, when they'd gone through the ward where all four victims had been torn apart and shook his head.

"How vengeful do vengeful spirits get?" he asked the more experienced hunter helplessly.

"Pretty goddamned vengeful," Abely admitted. "But this – there's something off here."

John snorted disbelievingly. "Something? There's a lotta things 'off' here!"

"We'll have to go in, tonight," Abely said, shaking his head. "We'll take all the usual."

John looked over at the end of the bed. The modified personal armour lay on the end, a polished brass, copper and steel concoction of articulated joints, leather strapping, automatic guns and mini-flamethrower. He'd worked with it a few times now, but he wasn't sure about his reactions with it.

"Only spirits and electrical appliances emit a strong EMF field," John said, looking back at his partner.

Abely shook his head again. "There aren't any electrical fields or appliances capable of generating fields like that. Haven't been for more than fifty years. Even most of the stations are shielded against it now –" He stopped abruptly, brows drawn tightly together.

"Something?"

"I don't know," he said, rubbing the heel of his hand over his forehead as if he could rub the thought or memory to the forefront of his mind. "You remember hearing about alligators in the sewers of the big cities?"

A laugh burst out of John. "Yeah, my step-dad told me that one, said it was a myth, from back in the '20s." He looked up at Abely, the laughter vanishing. "Whatever's killing these people, it's not in the sewers."

"No, it's not," the hunter said, his eyes a little distant. He turned abruptly to his gear bag, dragging back the chunky-machined zipper and rummaging through the contents. John blinked as he pulled out a handful of soft copper links.

"Put that on," Abely told him, tossing it to him and turning back to the bag.

John caught the metal mesh and held it up, untangling the folds. "What is it?"

"Something Gil came up with for dealing with massed spirit attacks," Abely said distractedly. "Put it on."

The links made up a garment, John saw. A flexible vest with a cowled hood. He manoeuvred his arms and head awkwardly through the metal sleeves and neck and let it fall, the small coils of copper cold against his neck and cheeks where it rested.

Glancing over his shoulder at him, Abely grinned. "Not going to make a fashion statement but it'll disrupt anything of an electrical-magnetic nature that comes at you."

"Is this completely necessary?" John turned to look at himself in the dusty and spotted mirror over the dresser. The vest was heavy, although not as heavy as steel would've been, he allowed. The links caught and tugged at his hair.

"I think it might be," Abely said. "There's a memory, an old one, plucking at me, but I can't remember the details, just that one of my father's partners died in Pittsburgh in something like this."

John turned to look at him. "Reassuring."

"Ah, I'll kick the bucket before you do, Johnnie," Abely said, shrugging off the sentiment as he turned back to his bag and pulled out his own hunter's helper.

John walked back to the bed, picking up his duffel and looking through it for the knitted cap Millie had made for him two years ago. It would fit under the chain-mail hood and give him more of a chance of finishing the hunt with some hair still attached to his head, he thought sourly.

* * *

The click of the heavy iron padlocks were loud in the silent corridor and John flinched a little as he turned away from the doors, now chained and locked, and faced the long hall.

"Sister Amaster said this wing has been closed off since the last killing," Abely said softly. "Let's hope whatever it is is getting hungry again."

He started to walk slowly down the hall, the muted whirring of the geared armour barely audible over the similar burr and clicks of John's augmented right arm. Strapped over the mesh vest, the hydraulic and geared armour worked with his own muscle power, each of the weapons that were embedded around the forearm guard and shoulder pauldron designed to fire with the slightest twitch of a finger, the fine rods controlling the triggers running along his tendons from his knuckles. It'd taken him months to learn to control the damned thing, nearly shooting off his own foot a few times, and setting fire to a lot of stuff in the process. He hadn't yet met Gil, the inventor responsible for the armour and Abely's car and a host of other gadgets and toys that Abely used as a matter of course, but he'd already come to respect the brain that had devised them.

They both heard the rustle, echoing through the long tiled hall, and stopped, Abely's sharp two-fingered gesture to the left unmistakable. John nodded once, moving silently across the tiles to take position by the closed door there.

Under the helmet and behind the boiled-and-brass-reinforced leather face-plate the older hunter wore, John could just see his eyes, bright blue and narrowed as Abely moved up to the door. The single shot was quiet, and the bullet hit the door's lock precisely, followed by the hunter's boot as he kicked it open and launched himself into the room, John hard on his heels.

Light splashed across the far wall from the head-mounted flashlights on both men's helmets, catching the creature in the corner of the room. John felt his mouth drop open as he stared at it. Abely had already raised his arm, fully extended and the salt-and-iron loaded shotgun shells pumped out, the shot spreading over the creature as it howled and writhed, elongating suddenly and diving to the floor, moving in the fast s-bend ripples of a snake as it struck the small ventilation grill and disappeared inside.

"Christ!" Abely dove across the floor, the clang of his armoured fingertips hitting the sides of the vent as the feet of the creature disappeared.

"What was that?!" John strode across the room, his gaze following the spattering trail of blood drops from the corner to the bent and twisted grill.

"Mutant, I think," Abely said, rolling back against the wall and pushing himself up to this feet.

"What?"

"It's living in the walls, some kind of mutie that can change shape," Abely gestured to the plasterboard.

"It bleeds red blood," John pointed out, staring at the floor and the splash next to the grill.

"It's human, or it was, once," Abely nodded. "Something happened, when it was an infant, or to its mother, when it was in the womb."

"Mutations don't happen that quickly, Abely," John argued, looking around corridor as they came out of the room. "They take generation after generation for a change that big."

"Yeah, Gil said that too, mostly they do," Abely agreed. "But sometimes there's a leap, he said. You can talk to him about it when we're done here."

At the far end of the hall there was a clanging sound and they both turned and ran for it.

"It's in the wall cavities?" John panted beside the older hunter. "They're too small to stay in, surely?"

"Might be using the wet walls for faster travel," Abely said as he hit the door at the end of the hall and slowed at the top of a staircase. "But I'll bet you anything the lair's in the basement, down near the furnace."

John nodded and headed down the stairs, briefly wishing he wasn't quite so encumbered with the weight of the armour, vest and helmet as he swung around the bend of each of the flights. He slowed at the bottom, the beam of his flashlight lighting up a brick-lined wall with two doors set into it.

"Which way?"

"Follow the heat," Abely said, gesturing to the right.

As John turned down the t-intersection, he felt the soft stirring of a warm draught against his face. His nose wrinkled up sharply as he smelled the whiff of carrion on it.

* * *

_**Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Dean sat on the edge of his bed, looking down at the small object in his hands. It was the only one he had of her, and he'd made the delicately embossed leather frame in school last year, especially for it.

The polished leather was rectangular, the cut-out for the photo a perfect oval in the centre and the slanted golden afternoon light from the window behind him caught the lines and bevels, of flowers and tendrils and leaves, surrounding the fading colour photograph. Mary's hair was loose, falling down her back in a pale blonde cascade of waves as she'd tilted her head back a little, smiling at the camera, her face in three-quarter profile. She looked young and beautiful and that was how he remembered her, leaning over the bed to tuck him in and drop a warm kiss on his forehead, or curled beside him, her arm around his shoulders as she read aloud, or sitting next to him, cutting the crusts off his sandwiches as she made them lunch in the sunny kitchen.

Sammy had never known her.

He sighed deeply, knowing full well that it was the only thing he could give his brother that would be meaningful, that would be a _gift_. He picked up the smoothed out coloured paper Millie had found for him and set the leather frame in the centre, folding the edges over and tying them down with a short length of string.

Getting up and tucking the present in his jacket pocket, he walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, the smells coming from the kitchen guiding him unerringly.

* * *

Looking up as he came into the room, Millie smiled at him, a dot of vivid pink frosting on one cheek as she smoothed the knife over the cake in front of her.

"You find something, Dean?" she asked, gesturing to the dresser to one side of the room where a small pile of brightly-wrapped presents were piled.

He nodded and veered to the dresser, lifting a couple of the gifts and putting his underneath them. The big, hand-written tags that were tied to the presents proclaimed that his little brother had a present from everyone, Millie and Abely, Uncle Jim and his father, and his own, tag-less but obvious, made it a full house.

Turning away determinedly, he looked at the enormous cake on the pine table. Millie had concocted a clown's head from the different shades of frosting on the top, bright blue hair sticking out to either side of a white face, a shocking crimson mouth curving up in a wide smile and a sulphurous-yellow daisy bobbing from the screamingly orange hat.

"Where'd you get the colours?" he asked, a little taken aback by the eye-searing brightness of the cake.

"Gil made them up for me," she said, absently licking her fingers as she finished the final touches. "Said he'd distilled them from flowers and herbs. Do you like it?"

"It's … um … bright," he offered, with a weak smile. He was sure his little brother would like it. The colours at least. The face looked a little lop-sided, the painted eyes seeming to look in different directions.

She laughed at the comment indulgently, nodding agreement. "Well, he's five, I'm hoping his sense of discrimination isn't as strong as yours," she said. Dean shrugged and walked to the stove, nose twitching at the smells coming from the oven.

"What's for dinner?" he asked.

"Sammy's favourite, of course," she said, casting a critical eye over her work. "Jim's coming around at six, Dean, could you please set the dining table for four?"

He nodded, hearing her soft muttering behind him. Millie tended to think out loud, his father had explained when he'd asked why she was always muttering under her breath. He knew what the one-sided conversation she was having now was likely to be about. They'd both hoped Abely and his father would be back in time, but it wasn't likely. Hunts, he knew, had no timetables or schedules. They took as long as they took.

Pulling out the deep drawer in the dining room sideboard, he grabbed the white table-cloth and flicked it out, watching it billow and settle over the table. Just the four of them meant Sammy could sit at the end, and he set the plates out automatically.

* * *

Jim Murphy leaned back in his chair and smiled widely across the table at Millie. "An excellent repast, my dear," he told her, glancing at Sammy's sauce and meat-smeared face. "Seems like the birthday boy enjoyed it as well."

Dean rolled his eyes as he looked at his brother. Lasagne was Sam's favourite, but it was also the only meal his brother could manage to spread everywhere. He leaned forward and grabbed a clean napkin, handing it to Sammy and making a wiping gesture at him.

"Let's get this cleaned up and then we can have cake and Sammy can open his presents," Millie suggested, getting to her feet to help the little boy with the wiping up, as the napkin in his hand spread the red and white sauce further up his cheeks and into his hair.

Jim and Dean got to their feet and picked up the plates, carrying them out to the kitchen together. As Jim ran warm water over them, he glanced at the older boy.

"You alright, Dean?"

Dean nodded without looking up. "Just wondering how Dad and Abely are doing."

"Probably getting things wrapped up around now," Jim said bracingly, stacking the rinsed dishes to one side of the sink. "You know, I was thinking it was about time we took your dad over to meet the Harvelles," he added, wiping his hands and dropping one onto Dean's shoulder. "They run a meeting place for hunters, over in Nebraska, and it'd give your dad more contacts, and you kids could meet some of the hunter families."

Looking up at him, Dean let the ramifications of that run through his mind. He had a couple of friends here, but Hum wasn't really from a hunting family, and the kids who were were douchebags. He nodded enthusiastically.

"School's finishing for summer soon, isn't it?" Jim asked, hiding a smile at the gleam in the boy's eyes.

"Yeah, another four weeks," Dean said.

"Good, give us enough to get ourselves sorted out."

"What's taking you guys so long?" Millie called out from the dining room. "Come on, Sammy wants to open his presents."

"Better get in there," Jim said, stopping by the table and picking up the cake. "Grab the knife, we'll have this monstrosity as soon as he's opened his gifts."

Dean picked up the long knife and followed the priest back into the dining room. He'd heard that a lot of hunters stopped at the roadhouse in Nebraska, to get information or catch up. Even Stan had talked about it.

Jim set the cake down in the middle of the table and Dean put the knife down next to it, watching his brother's face as he tore into the first present, big blue eyes now beginning to get flecks of green and brown in them, lit up as the wrapping paper fell away and he saw his father's present, a beautifully illustrated book of stories. Dean pushed back the small internal groan as he looked at the book – he'd be the one reading it most nights, he thought, catching Sammy's excited glance at him – starting tonight.

Jim's present was a small but elaborate flashlight, the polished lens magnifying and amplifying the small gas bulb inside and throwing a strong beam across the room. Sammy managed to almost blind them all with it before he could be persuaded to turn it off and set it down, picking up the present from Abely next.

The leather vest, shaped through several layers, had been decorated from shoulders to waist with the sigils and wards against everything Abely could think of. Silver filigree and brass embellishment made the anti-possession designs sparkle and gleam on the front and back and Dean's breath gusted out in a deeply envious exhale as he saw the kid-soft straps and brass buckles that lined both sides. Sam looked at it in awe, eyes huge and round as his glance took in his brother's open-mouthed covetous expression and the laughter in Millie's eyes.

"Is it – armour – for me?" he asked her.

She nodded, getting up and going around to his side. "You want to try it on?"

"Yes, please," he said, lifting it up, Millie's hand taking it and lowering it over his head, Jim buckling up one side as Millie fastened the other.

"Is it good, Dean?" Sammy asked his brother.

Dean nodded, swallowing hard. "Bee's knees, little brother."

Sammy tore open Millie's present, the finely woven shirt and thick, knitted coat anti-climatic after the real armoured vest but both would be appreciated a little down the line, she thought. The only present left on the table was a small rectangle, and Sammy glanced at his brother, nodding in thanks as his fingers pulled the paper from it.

For a long moment, he just sat and stared at the frame in his hands, and both Millie and Jim got up and walked behind him to see what he held. Millie's heart contracted sharply as she looked from the frame to Dean's ducked head and she moved around beside him, her hand squeezing his shoulder lightly as Sammy finally tore his gaze from the photograph and looked at his brother.

"Is that Mommy?"

Dean nodded. "So you can remember her."

"Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

_**Jefferson, Iowa**_

John didn't need to look behind at Abely to know that they were heading in the right direction. He moved to one side of the corridor, hearing Abely move to the other and they followed the draught and the scent to a wide brick archway, leading into the basement. A running furnace, steam-turbines and water-boiler took up the length of one long wall, the light a dim red, primarily from the glow of the furnace, and the room was clouded with steam, leaking from the pipes that ran overhead and along the walls, moisture dripping from every surface. John saw the puddles on the floor and jerked his head toward them, Abely nodding in acknowledgement.

Flexing his fingers very gingerly inside the metal and silk glove, John moved quietly down the length of the room. His nerves were jumping with anticipation, muscles twitching with the adrenalin that had flooded through his body. In his mind's eye, the creature elongated again, the normal human frame stretching and contorting, the internal vision still disturbing him.

The attack came as he passed the turbines and the soft roar of the machines almost drowned out the crackle and popping of the mutant's body as it grew and bulged out with muscle, filled with a building charge. John snapped his arm out, the flame-thrower belching a long tongue of flame at it as he ducked under its reaching arm, the big room instantly infused with the offensive odour of burning meat and burning battery. The creature's agonised howl rebounded from the walls, overriding the increasing hiss of superheated steam from the pipes behind it.

"John! Get out of there," Abely yelled, twisting away as the electro-magnetic charge flashed through the room, an amorphous nimbus that sparked along John's copper vest, charring the linen shirt he wore under it and almost blinding him but deflecting the field from his body's vital electrical conduits.

John pulled out the modified automatic from the holster on his belt, lifting and firing in a smooth motion as he fell sideways to the floor. The bullets were silver and iron, hollowed out at the points and filled with cyanide, and whether the mutant was primarily a carbon-based human or something else entirely at least one of those elements should kill it, he thought incoherently as he emptied the clip into it at less than ten feet range.

The explosion was silent and lightless. It sparked across his vest and brought the turbines and their motors to a grinding halt, disrupting the flow of electricity generated by the steam-engine. John turned his head, seeing Abely's body lying on the floor, arching up and twisting helplessly as the electrical impulses, produced by the brain and regulating his entire body, overloaded.

"No!"

He rolled to his feet, ignoring the bleeding and faintly charred body in front of him and ran to his partner, pulling off helmet and mask, heart lurching in his chest as he saw Abely's eyes, bright blue and open and staring.

_Not today_, he thought, his gaze sweeping the room. Jump-start, that's all Abely needed. A jump-start to kick the power back on. He ran to the steam-engine and pulled at the dead wires that connected it to the turbines, following the run of black back until it stopped at the cut-off. Several reels of plain copper wire hung from pegs near the engine and he grabbed them, pulling out a pair of snippers from the pouch on his belt and cutting off two five foot lengths.

_Positive and negative_, he reminded himself. _An arc from one side of the body to the other_. The steam-engine was still chugging away, the furnace heating the water in the boiler. The ability to generate electricity had not been destroyed, only the generators that converted the energy from steam to current. Twisting the wire ends onto the rods, John bypassed the turbines and dragged the wires across the floor, dropping to his knees and pulling Abely out of the puddle he was half-lying in, stripping off the armour and weapons, pulling off his wet woollen coat and touching the two ends of the copper wire together. They sparked and he set them against Abely's skin.

The hunter's body arched upwards and flopped back, and John bent quickly over his chest, ear pressed against the ribcage as he listened. Nothing. He put the charge through again, eyes shut tightly as Abely convulsed and fell back, small blackened marks left on his skin where the wires touched.

The thump was faint but there when he leaned over to listen and he heard the second thump, and then the third, lifting his head and staring at the base of his partner's throat, the lift and fall of the thin skin there blurring as his eyes filled with tears of relief. Sonofabitch had known that the monster might discharge an electro-magnetic field of its own, he thought furiously, getting to his feet and dragging the wire back to the turbines. Had known and had given him the vest instead of wearing it himself.

Walking back to the unconscious man, he unbuckled the augmented armour and let it drop to the floor, kneeling and sliding his arm under Abely's shoulders. The hunter's eyelids fluttered and opened and John's dark green eyes stared down into them accusingly.

The corner of Abely's mouth twitched up. "Figured it out, did you?"

"Sonofabitch!" John snapped at him, tempted to let him fall to the ground. "Don't you ever do that to me again!"

Abely exhaled softly, shifting an arm to prop himself up unaided. "Hopefully won't be another time like that," he said, his voice raw. "God, I feel like five miles of bad road."

"Yeah, well, you look like crap too," John said, his anger slowly dissolving along with his fear. "Think you can get up? We just knocked the power right out of this place and someone'll be down here sooner or later to see what went wrong."

"Have to burn the body," Abely said tiredly, twisting around to look at the mutant lying on the floor. "Think you can get it into the furnace on your own?"

"Yeah," John said, releasing him and getting to his feet. He looked down at the man lying at his feet. "Seriously, never again, alright?"

Abely closed his eyes and nodded, smiling a little. "Never again."

* * *

_**June 12, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

John looked over the car as he cranked the rotary pump, the pale gold liquid flowing from the drum into the tank with a muted gurgling rush.

"Dean, bags packed and loaded?" he asked as the boy came out through the front door and down the porch steps.

"Yessir," Dean responded instantly, turning to check that his brother was still following him.

In the embellished leather vest, Sammy looked like a kid playing dress-up, John thought, his amusement at the sight tempered by the uncomfortable awareness that the vest could save his son's life. The just-turned-five-year old wore it everywhere and he wasn't about to tell him to take it off, appreciating the work and trouble Abely had gone to create it, and the inherent protective value that lay behind the thought of the gift.

Clipped to the leather belt around Sammy's waist, the bulky flashlight swung and bumped against the little boy's leg with every movement. The batteries would last around two hundred hours, he'd been told, not really believing that, and Sammy was well on his way through the first one hundred, judging by the amount of times he'd passed the boy's room late at night and seen the thin gleam of gold from beneath the door.

He turned his gaze on his oldest son, wondering what he could acquire for Dean that would take his mind off his little brother's treasures. Despite the fact that Dean had not once, by look or voice or suggestion, complained that Sammy was better equipped than he was, and knowing full well how much that must have rubbed the older boy, he knew that Dean was still coveting the vest and flashlight. He had an idea about something he thought he'd like, but he had no idea of how to get it, and it would have to wait for Christmas now.

Outside the long drive, Jim's hybrid truck was chugging loudly, the priest checking over his gear for the trip south and west. Abely was riding shotgun in the black car for this trip.

"_Why isn't Millie coming?" he'd asked the hunter four days ago when they'd begun to plan the trip, and Abely had turned to him with a somewhat wry smile, pipped of the explanation as Millie had come into the room with an armful of freshly dried laundry and laughed at his expression._

"_Ellen and I don't really get along," she'd said, sailing through the living room with the laundry and heading up the stairs._

_John had frowned at Abely questioningly._

"_Bill's got a keen eye for the ladies, and it lingered a little too long on Millie, last time we were there," Abely had explained with a shrug. "He'd never do anything, any more than Millie would've, but it made for a strained reunion and Millie hasn't been back to the roadhouse since."_

"_You don't sound too worried," he'd said, glancing at the stairs._

"_Millie's a hell of a woman, John," Abely said, a slight smile lifting one cheek. "And there are some that have questioned her loyalty," he added, leaning back in the chair and looking up at the ceiling absently. "But I don't. Not ever."_

The odd conversation reverberated in his mind as the pump began sucking air, and he pulled out the hose. The rumours of what had caused the original rifts between Abely and the other hunters in the community had revolved around Millie. He still hadn't heard the full story, only enough to keep him from asking either of them directly.

There was a sharp toot from the end of the drive and he waved to Jim, rolling the empty drum on its edge back under the shelter of the shed roof, and leaving the pump on the top to drain off.

_More hunters_, he thought, only a little nervously as he opened the driver's door and opened the choke, going around the front to crank the engine. The compression took most of his strength and he straightened up with relief as it caught, removing the handle and returning to the driver's side to slide behind the wheel.

_Hunters of every kind and level of experience_, Jim had said. He glanced into the mirror, seeing the boys already engaged in some kind of game on the seat behind him. And hunters with families, with children. That was worth going for, he thought, with a half-smile. Dean hadn't been very forthcoming with the problems he'd encountered with the other children of the hunting families at the little school, but from the variety of bruises he'd brought home, it sure wouldn't hurt for the boy to make friends a little further from the community here.

* * *

_**Wayne, Nebraska**_

"Is that it?" Dean asked from the back seat, his voice filled with disappointment.

Abely laughed softly and turned to look at him. "You expecting a golden palace and dancing girls, Dean?"

"No," Dean said, a line of red rising up his neck as he looked away. "Just, you know, not a piece of crap."

John snorted as he pulled into the bare, gravelled lot. The building that occupied the lot looked as if it had been added onto by varyingly skilled family members over the years. It was four-storey, leaning a little to one side, balconies and walks and cupolas built onto the original at every conceivable angle and supported by cast-iron columns and wrought-iron arches and lean-to extensions that seemed to be doing the job of buttresses against the outer walls. It was partially built of stone, partially of brick and clapboard and metal siding, uniformity gained with several coats of black paint, gleaming and flat, looking rather sinister against the drab gravel lot and the dark line of trees behind it.

Perhaps two dozen vehicles, of every conceivable type and including several wagons and buggies, their long-suffering horses standing between the shafts, resting hindlegs with their heads hanging low, filled the open ground around it, and John caught a brief glimpse of several smaller sheds standing behind the main building.

He pulled into an empty slot near the far left-hand corner of the building, glancing in satisfaction at the state of the fuel tank and let the engine die. Jim pulled in beside him and they got out of the cars, leaving the gear in them and walking up the slanting porch steps to the half-glass door at the front that held a large 'Open' sign, flat against the pane.

John squinted in the darkness of the interior after the bright sunlight outside, and he hesitated over the threshold, feeling Sammy press tightly against his leg, his hand flashing out and preventing Dean from wandering off.

As his eyes adjusted and the dim interior brightened, he saw that the room they'd entered was enormous, but following the mismatched outline of the exterior, with nooks and alcoves, doors and archways all the way around. Directly in front of them, a u-shaped bar took pride of place, the scarred timber top polished by hundreds of elbows and warmly lit by gas-lamps around its edges. It was lined with long-legged and high-backed stools and nearly every seat was filled.

To the left, the floor level went up a couple of feet, steps that ran the full width of the room leading to an area with three billiards tables glowing green under the overhead filament bulbs, all strobing faintly with the distantly-heard chugs of the steam-engine that powered the place.

To the right and scattered through the centre of the room, small tables were filled by groups of men and women, talking quietly as they ate and drank, gazes flicking up to take in the newcomers and returning to their companions without lingering. His attention was drawn back to the bar by the warm, rich laugh of a woman.

"That's Ellen," Abely said beside him. "The guy on the other side of the bar is her husband, Bill."

John followed him and Jim across the floor, weaving in and out of the tables. In a deep russet silk gown, rucked up at the front to reveal a froth of lacy petticoats and a pair of narrow, dark-brown button-up boots, the woman was earthily attractive. Long maple-gold hair was carelessly piled into a chignon on the top of her head, framing a square, tanned face with a wide mouth and sherry-coloured eyes surrounded by laugh-lines. The closely-fitted jacket was a dark-gold velvet, showing off not only the slender waist and creamy, faintly-freckled cleavage, but belted with a long leather sheath holding an elaborately carved knife against one hip, and an old-fashioned six-shot revolver with pearl-handled grips on the other.

"Jim!" She turned toward them, eyes crinkling up in delight as the priest hugged her tightly. John saw her glance over Jim's shoulder at Abely, then past him toward the door as she stepped back from the embrace.

"Abely, it's been a while," she said, smiling warmly. "Where's Millie?"

Abely smiled back. "Overwhelmed with a new business venture, she sent her apologies and best wishes to you, Ellen."

"Oh," Ellen said, ducking her head and glancing back over the bar at her husband. "What a shame. You be sure to give her my best when you get back."

Abely met Bill's eyes over the bar. "I'll definitely do that," he promised blithely. John saw Bill's eyes roll slightly as he nodded behind his wife's back.

"Ellen, Bill, this is John Winchester," Jim said, as he slid onto an empty stool. "Out of Lawrence."

There was a fractional hesitation in both man and woman, John thought, before they smiled their welcomes and held out their hands. Was it him, or the mention of the town that had caused it?

"A pleasure to meet you, John," Ellen said, looking down at the boys by his side. "Are these fine young men with you?"

"Dean, my eldest," John said, as Dean looked up at her. "And Sammy."

Ellen smiled at them. "Welcome to Harvelle's, boys," she said, twisting around to look around the room. "My daughter is somewhere around here."

A little girl ran out of the office door next to the end of the bar at that moment, blonde hair tied back in two clumps to either side of her head flying out as she shot across the room to her mother. One small hand clamped tightly around the russet skirt and after a moment, she peered out from behind it.

"Jo Beth Harvelle, take that finger out of your nose," Ellen admonished automatically, looking down at her. "This is Dean and Sammy Winchester, and their father, John."

Huge blue eyes stared at them and Dean hid the laugh bubbling up with a cough as the finger slowly descended and was wiped surreptitiously on Ellen's dress.

"You staying for a couple?" Ellen asked Jim as Bill drew beers and set them on the counter.

"Yes, we were hoping to see Gil and Paddy before we take off," Jim said, picking up the brew and swallowing a mouthful.

"He's been up north, but he got back yesterday," Bill told the priest, pushing the other two glasses toward the men as they took their seats at the bar.

"He'll be in tonight," Ellen said comfortably. "Jo, why don't you show Dean and Sammy their rooms and then you can all play together?"

John glanced at his eldest's face, silently applauding the quickly-hidden spasm that flickered over it. "Good idea, Dean, grab the bags and take them up and you boys can have a look around," he said. "Just keep Sammy close, okay?"

"Yessir," Dean said, staring down as the three-year old walked around her mother and captured his hand with grubby fingers.

"I show you," she said, gazing up at him and tugging at his hand.

John pretended not to see his son's desperate parting look, an indiscriminate mix of irritation and mortification as he was dragged away, Sammy trailing after them.

* * *

"John, this is Bobby Singer and Travis Bickleby," Jim said, gesturing at the men standing beside the booth.

John stood up, offering his hand to the man closest. Under six foot but broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, Bickleby had a close grey buzz-cut and a seamed and reddened face and his light-grey eyes were thoughtful as his hand closed around John's. To his right, the other hunter was a little taller, lean and wiry, a russet beard beginning to show the first threads of grey, his face shadowed by the brim of a stained baseball cap. Singer nodded slightly as they shook.

Both men had strong grips, John noted, sitting down and sliding back in the booth to make room for the two men to sit down. Even a quick glance had shown their hands to be calloused and criss-crossed with small scars, Singer's were also rimed with a dark substance that had filled the creases and sunk in around the fingernails. They were working men's hands, he thought, not sure why that seemed surprising.

"What are you looking for?" Bobby looked at Abely and John recognised the tacit understanding between the three men, that they would talk of business in front of him, but he wasn't going to be included as an equal until he'd proved himself in the field. He leaned back against the wall and settled himself to watch and listen.

"You talked to Emerson lately?" Jim looked from Bobby to Travis.

Both shook their heads. "Haven't been down to KC for awhile, why?" Travis asked.

"He said the shop was being targeted," Jim said with a sigh as he leaned forward. "Thought it was demons."

"Have to be half-breeds," Bobby said with a disdainful sniff. "They're on the increase."

"No, he said full-blood," Abely interjected, his elbow against Jim's as he leaned on the table as well. "Bill's going out, but he needs some help."

"Well, I ain't doing anything right now," Bobby said, looking from one to the other. "Turner's free too."

"Good," Jim said, nodding. "We'll need a run back from there if they have been noticed – bring them back to Blue Earth, they'll be safe enough at the church for a while."

"Damn, Jim, if I didn't know you better, I'd swear you were nervous," Travis said, staring at the priest uneasily.

"You know me well enough, Travis," Jim admitted. "The last four years we've seen more omens and signs than in the previous hundred. It's not just me getting antsy, either."

"Something is coming, something big," Abely agreed, glancing sideways at Jim and past him to John. "And I don't think any hunter has seen anything like it before."

"For the sake of argument," Bobby grated slowly, "humour me, and tell me just what you two have got your panties in a twist about?"

"In '72, a demon got out of Hell, Bobby," Jim said in a low voice. "No one, not even the order, has been able to track it since."

"Now, how the hell do you know that, padre?" Travis stared at him.

"It killed eight nuns in Maryland," Jim replied shortly. He didn't look at John but John felt his attention turn to him anyway. After Maryland, that demon had gone looking for families. He wondered why Jim wasn't telling the whole story to the two men.

"That was a priest," Travis argued, a lack of conviction in his voice. "Priest who went nuts. I read that report."

"No."

Bobby waved down Travis' next counter impatiently. "Suppose that's true, how'd it get out? You, more than anyone else, know that it's not possible, Jim. The rules can't be bent, can't be twisted."

"I don't know how, Bobby," Jim admitted readily. "And I don't know why. Emerson said he found something, in the archives of Albertus. That's when he said the traps started to get pinged."

* * *

"Hey."

Dean turned around, seeing the tall, long-limbed boy as he climbed over the wall and dropped to the ground next to him. Tow-blond hair flopped over a high forehead, half-hiding the dark blue eyes.

"Hey," he returned neutrally. He'd escaped from the little girl's clutching fingers an hour ago and had left her to annoy his brother, slipping out the back of the roadhouse and wandering through the massively overgrown garden toward the marshes.

"Caleb Rourke," the boy said, pushing the overhanging fringe back with a big, bony hand. "Your dad's a hunter, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Dean acknowledged warily. "Dean Winchester."

"Heard your dad's working with Abely?"

_Here it comes_, Dean thought with an inward grimace. "Yep."

"He's a hell of a hunter, Abely. I'd love to work with him."

Dean blinked at the words, looking more closely at the boy. "Your dad a hunter?"

"No," Caleb said, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Just a miller. I'm going to be one, as soon as I hit my majority."

Dean nodded uncertainly. "How does that work if your family's not in the life?"

"I'm fostered," Caleb said with a shrug. "Since I was twelve," he added, gesturing across the rank fields toward the tiny town. "Live with Moses Karnack and his boys and train."

Dean nodded again, not much wiser. Living away from your family to do something different from what they did wasn't a concept he'd really entertained before.

"You gonna be here a few days?" Caleb looked down at him curiously.

"I think so," Dean said. Abely had said they had to find out some stuff. And Jim wanted his father to meet Gil.

"Cool, then I'll see you around," Caleb said, vaulting to the top of the wall and lifting a hand in a casual farewell as he dropped out of view on the other side.

"Guess so," Dean said to himself, a small half-smile lifting a cheek as he realised he'd found someone who might well fit into the category of future friend.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

John watched the cuff-link as it rolled down the faintly slanted floor toward the wall. The rooms were on the third floor of the roadhouse and he was almost certain that the boys' room, next to his, had a slight list the other way.

"I look stupid," Dean said peevishly from the doorway that connected the two rooms.

Glancing up at him as he retrieved the errant cuff-link, John's smile smoothed out into an expression of serious consideration. The dark-green velvet suit was a little on the large side, except across the shoulders, and his son's hair had been wetted and flattened down, combed into submission with a part on one side.

"No, you look good," he said, walking back to the dresser. "Colour suits you."

Dean's face screwed up. "We don't have to do this at home."

"Mmm …" John yanked on the shirt cuff and fastened the link. "But we're not at home, and it's usual to make an effort for dinner when you've been invited to someone else's home."

"It's hot and this shirt doesn't fit right." Dean tugged at the lace-decorated collar around his neck. "Why can't I wear one like yours?"

John looked down at the military uniform he was wearing. A severe dark grey with a short, standing collar and polished silver buttons, it was plain, and he knew that was the main attraction of it.

"When you've done a stint in the service, you get to wear the uniform," he said, brows drawing together a little at the memory. "How's Sammy going with his?"

"He looks worse than I do," Dean sniffed, only slightly mollified by that fact. Sammy's suit was plum-coloured, the coat without long tails but the shirt front a mad waterfall of lace.

"Is he ready?" John clarified the question and Dean nodded resignedly.

"Then let's go eat."

* * *

Dean was relieved to see that he wasn't alone in the ignominy of uncomfortable and embarrassing dining dress. At the long table in the Harvelle's spacious private dining room, the men and women and children seated were all dressed in more or less the same styles, rich fabrics and colours contrasting with cascades of lace and ruffles and gleaming embroidery, jewellery glittering in the candle-light from the hands and wrists and throats of the women, children's faces clean and shining and slightly pink from their ablutions.

He was surprised to see Caleb, sitting in between a heavy-set, bearded man and two younger boys, the tall boy looking every bit as uncomfortable as he felt in a royal-blue satin suit with a jabot of silver-edged lace at his throat.

"Dean, Sam, you're down at the end," Ellen directed them as they came into the room, resplendent in a full-length, wine-red gown of brushed silk. "John, next to Jim."

Dean took the chair opposite Caleb quickly, sliding in before Sammy could protest. His brother shot him a surprisingly measured look for a five-year old as he sank reluctantly into the chair between Jo and another little girl a couple of years older, the plum colour of his suit clashing horribly with Jo's sapphire blue silk and the other girl's canary yellow organza.

"Told you I'd see you around," Caleb grinned at him across the table. "This is Saul and that's Mickey," he added, gesturing to the boys beside him.

Saul was his own age, Dean thought, Mickey a year or two younger. He nodded at them politely before his attention was snagged by the pile of plates in front of him, flanked by an army of cutlery on either side.

"What are we supposed to do with these?" he muttered in a low voice.

"Watch your betters and learn." The astringent advice came from a girl sitting at the end of the table, the pink silk of her dress so bright it seemed to bleed the colour into the air around it. Dean looked at her expressionlessly.

"Saff, give your mouth a rest for five minutes so's we can eat in peace," Caleb said, and Dean ducked his head to hide his delighted smirk as her cheeks and neck flamed the same colour as the dress.

* * *

"Haven't seen a mutie for years," Delaney said to John as he leaned back in his chair. "But heard they were on the increase, in some of the cities," he added, looking down the table. "Nick, didn't you say New York had a few last time you were there?"

John's fork paused mid-air as he looked down the table at the lean, sallow-skinned hunter.

"Saw one," the Italian hunter answered through a mouthful of food. "Heard about two others."

"That's nuthin' compared to the way the monster populations have been getting bigger," Roland interjected from the other side of the table. "Roy and Walt got back from a vampire nest two weeks ago," he paused for emphasis, looking across at a small, wiry man seated next to Abely. "Said that nest had thirty in it."

John watched as the man shrugged, cutting his food into small pieces and stabbing them together on his fork, plainly unimpressed by the figure. "Nests fluctuate naturally, Roland," he said, candle-light glinting from ginger hair and a neatly trimmed ginger beard as he tilted his head. "Depends on the human populations around them and on the master vamp's inclinations, more than any other factor."

"Daniel, did Gil finish those dart guns?" Bill asked him.

He nodded, chewing and swallowing as he turned to the big, blond man. "Gave me two, I'm heading out at the end of the week to test them."

"Dart guns?" John asked curiously, looking from the ginger-haired hunter to Bill. "For vampires?"

"Dead man's blood," Daniel said, one shoulder lifting in a casual shrug, his attention on his food. "The guns take thirteen darts per load, and the darts hold ten ccs of blood. Puts them down for about an hour. Makes for a safer extermination."

Abely grinned at John's expression. "You go out with Elkins, see what a vamp hunt looks like with an expert," he suggested.

Daniel looked up the table at John. "There's a nest in Colorado I was planning on testing the darts on. You could tag along if you want."

John nodded after a moment's thought. It would be a short run, relatively speaking, and he needed all the experience he could get. "Thanks, I'd be glad to."

"You leave the boys here, John," Ellen said, flicking a look at Bill for confirmation. "They can stay with us until you get back."

Abely leaned back in his chair, looking across at John with a lifted brow. "Three of us would make better odds, if Gil's darts don't work out so good."

Glancing down to the end of the table, John saw that both of his sons were deep in conversation with the other children sitting there. It would be a good chance for them to make friends within the wider community, he considered. Maybe learn a few new skills from the families who lived in and around Wayne. He nodded to Ellen.

"Thanks, I think that'd be a good idea."

* * *

Mostly hidden in a small clearing amidst a dark copse of pine and birch, the house was almost as shaky-looking as the roadhouse, Dean thought as he got out of the car.

A couple of miles from the roadhouse, the woods ran along the side of a water-logged meadow that edged the marsh, and the warmth of the day filled the air with strong scents of flowers and rotting vegetation and the hum of insects, bees and flies and midges, flying in clouds through the overgrown garden.

Paint peeled in long, pastel streamers from the clapboard walls, and piles of rusting metal were littered over the rank, weed-filled lawn, a stone-flagged path barely visible under the moss and bright green grass that was overwhelming it. Following his father along its meandering course, Dean wondered about the man who lived there.

They climbed the creaking porch steps and Abely rapped on the door with the cast-bronze knocker, the noise shockingly loud on the quiet porch. A minute later, the door opened and a short, wide woman stood there, looking at them warily.

"Help you?" she said, one hand tightening around the broom she held in one hand.

"Here to see Gil," Abely said easily, shaking his head at the woman. "You know that, Mae."

"Getting all sorts of people coming around here, Abely Thompson," the woman said, standing back to let them in. "Not all of them with good intentions, neither."

"Mae, this is John Winchester and his son, Dean." Abely stopped a few paces from the door. "John, this is Mae Roarke, Gil's – uh - housekeeper."

"A pleasure to meet you," John said, turning awkwardly in the hall to look at her. Iron-grey hair was wound into a huge bun at the back of her head, a dove-grey silk dress gleamed subtly under the white, flour-sack apron she wore. Her face was square and uncompromising, pale olive skin smooth and barely lined but the thin-lipped mouth was bracketed by deep creases and a deeper indent over the bridge of her nose indicated she hadn't found much to approve of in her life.

"Mr Winchester," she said stiffly, dropping a very small curtsey in front of him. "Gil's in the study, Abely. I'll bring tea shortly."

She closed the front door and walked straight-backed past them down the long, straight hall to the back of the house. John lifted a brow at his partner.

"She's alright," Abely said, turning down the hall. "Just protective. Use to be Gil's nanny, apparently. Raised him when his parents died."

The study was two doors down the hallway and they stopped in the doorway, looking around the double-room, Dean's eyes widening in astonishment. From ceiling to floor, the room was filled with books and scientific apparatus, polished brass scales and microscopes, astrolabes, sextants and compasses and leaning, rolled bundles of maps; an enormous and intricately painted globe took up one corner, piles of fine rice-paper covered in a distinctive, black, spider-fine scrawl were heaped and spilling from most of the horizontal surfaces. Along the glass-fronted bookcases a multitude of differently sized jars filled with clear liquid and holding specimens of hundreds of creatures, natural and unnatural; clocks both intact and in pieces, and over the chairs and sofas and small tables that crowded the room, dozens of weapons were randomly piled in varying states of disassembly. More books teetered in towers stacked haphazardly around the furniture which was almost buried under kites and pinwheels, concoctions of stretched thin paper and balsa-wood and tightly-wound gut. Looking down at the barely-visible floor, Dean saw jewel-coloured rugs scattered over the hardwood boards, and glints of springs and pins, brassy gold and bright silver, scattered like confetti over and between them.

"Gil? You in here?" Abely called out and they heard a muffled grunt from the other side of the room.

John looked around the rooms slowly. He'd thought Abely was an inventor, but in comparison, he realised he wasn't, not really. Just a tinkerer. He caught Abely's knowing glance and realised that thought must have been transparent on his face.

"Who's there?" A deep baritone voice enquired impatiently from somewhere behind the pianoforte, tucked between the cold hearth and a rose-coloured chaise longue that was almost entirely covered in armament.

"Abely Thompson." Abely stepped further into the room, wincing slightly as he heard a crunch from under his boot. "Got someone to meet you."

"Not really the time for visitors, Abely," the voice said irritably. "I'm almost there on the new rapid-load, explosive-head, shoulder-fired gatling gun."

There was a loud click from the direction of the pink chair, and the two men and boy flinched backward as a staccato roar filled the room, the distinctive gunfire overridden by the sounds of china and glass smashing and shattering, on the heels of which an infuriated squawk sounded from down the hall.

"NO FIRING IN THE HOUSE!"

Dean slid to one side of the doorway, pressing himself back against the wall as boots thundered up from the kitchen and Mae burst into the room, her hands coated in flour and her face red.

"GILLETTE PEGOTTY!" she yelled furiously as she strode past Abely and his father, weaving with practised ease through the obstacles in her path. "I told you! You test those infernal machines outside! I will NOT have guns firing in the house!"

"I'm sorry, dear," the owner of the deep baritone stood up, emerging from behind the pink chair, his tone conciliatory. "I will clean it all up and replaster the wall."

He was very tall and very thin, broad-shoulders stretching the fine white lawn shirt but the purple and gold waistcoat he wore over it hanging loosely. Straw-gold, curly hair fell around his face, pale white skin unlined and shadowed around the eye sockets and under the cheekbones, the cherubic features belied by a not-very-convincing expression of remorse as he clambered over a pile of metal armour and discreetly dropped the gun he was holding onto a chair.

"I promise, won't happen again," he added to the woman in front of him. His eyes, the irises an unusual golden-grey, were magnified hugely behind the thick lenses of a pair of delicate gold-wire framed glasses, the construction a little bizarre with coloured lenses sticking out to either side, obviously hinged to fit over the clear ones.

"Don't you think you're too old for me to take a spoon to," she said, her gaze cutting away from his face. "You're not and I've a big hard one in the kitchen that's waiting!"

She turned abruptly and bustled back past the men and through the door, throwing a parting comment over her shoulder, "Morning tea will be at precisely eleven, gentlemen, in the music room!"

"My apologies," Gillette said, turning and picking up the miniaturised gun from behind the cushions of the chair and carrying it toward them. "For some, the apron strings are never truly cut."

John lifted a brow at Abely, who shook his head.

"This is John Winchester, Gil," he said to the man as he stopped in front of them. "His son, Dean."

Gillette looked at John carefully and extended his hand. The long-fingered bony hand was larger than John's, the skin smooth and pale but the grip wiry and hard.

"A delight to meet you, John," he said politely, turning and offering his hand to Dean. "And you, Dean."

Dean stepped forward, his hand swallowed entirely by the inventor's. "Nice to meet you, Mr Pegotty."

"No, no, no," Gillette said, dropping the boy's hand and waving dismissively. "No mister here, just Gil will do for all and sundry." He looked down at Dean, eyes narrowing behind the glasses for a moment. "Your mother was a Campbell, wasn't she?"

Dean looked at his father, surprised.

"Yes, she was," John said uneasily, taking a step closer to Dean. "How did you know that?"

"He has her eyes," Gil said vaguely. "Beautiful eyes, Mary had. Ran in the family."

"You knew her?"

"Oh yes, briefly. She ran away to become a housewife, as I recall, quite the opposite of what everyone expected."

John threw an accusing look at Abely. "Did everyone know her?"

Abely looked away uncomfortably. "It's not such a big community, John. And Samuel was well-known."

The tacit apology in the man's voice was accompanied by a silent plea to shelve the conversation until later and John nodded slowly, his eyes promising his partner that it would be raised when they were alone.

"Oh yes, it was Samuel who started me on the investigations of the monster pathology. Has Abely told you what I do here, John?" Gillette wove his way across the room to a big desk, pulling out a drawer and rummaging through the contents.

"Not really," John said, glancing back at Dean, seeing his son's closed-in expression with a sinking feeling.

"I'll have to take you for the tour," the inventor said brightly, straightening up and tucking something into his waistcoat pocket. "But first, Mrs G will have our guts for garters if we don't take ourselves to the conservatory and sample her tea."

* * *

"The thing that struck me most vividly was the idea that in almost every known encounter," Gillette said as he turned on the lights for the laboratory in the basement. "the monster transmits its monstrosity through some form of touch. The Campbell family was working on the same thing for centuries."

Dean walked between two benches, looking at the things that covered them, most of a use he couldn't imagine.

"Vampires use blood. Werewolves must bite their victim," the inventor continued, waving his arms for emphasis. "Ghouls and shifters and the djinn of the Arabian peninsula, even those of Persia, must have skin to skin contact."

He stopped by a long, metal-covered bench and looked at them. "All biological, you see?"

"Rawheads don't make new creatures of their own lines," John said with a frown.

"No, but they're spirit manifestations and the spirits, whether human or once-human, infest living flesh and either drink the soul or jettison it, or infuse it, like demons and the angel visitations of thousands of years ago." He looked down at the bulky microscope beside him. "Look at this, John."

Warily, John walked around him and set his eye against the metal eyepiece, staring at the magnified, under-lit slide. He could see a number of small, round objects, all unmoving, all tinted a pale blue.

"That is the blood of a vampire, after the vampirism has been established," Gillette told him briskly. The slide was removed, leaving a plain white light, and another replaced it. "And that, there, is the blood of a fledgling who has not yet fed."

The blood cells were still small and round, still tinted blue. But some were moving, sluggishly, in the liquid suspension.

"You see, the final petrification of the cells does not happen until the newborn vampire has ingested blood from its own kill."

The slide was whipped away and another slid into its place. "And this shows the effects of the hypericum-verbana solution."

John squinted as he watched the pale blue colour leeching out from the cells and staining the solution. "This is a cure for vampirism?"

"Not a hundred percent effective, just yet," Gillette said with a sigh. "But yes, the mixture draws the poisoned blood from the host cells if the infecting blood of the master vampire is used as a key."

John straightened up and stepped aside as Dean came close to look into the microscope.

"That's astonishing," he said to the inventor.

"Not really," Gillette dismissed the sentiment, turning to the bench behind him. "The undoing of the bite of the werewolf is significantly more interesting," he said, gesturing at the beakers and glass tubes and rods, the slides and three machines that hummed very softly on its surface. "These infections – I really think of them as diseases – have several things in common, and they're all related to the changes on a cellular level."

"But ghouls and shifters don't change the original victim," Dean said, turning to look up at him. "They copy the victim to get more victims."

"An astute observation, Dean," Gillette agreed, nodding and waving a hand toward the benches against the wall. "And although ghouls do eat their victims, shifters generally speaking feed off the psychic and physical pain they inflict, in a manner not dissimilar to what I've read of the demons." He walked down to the bench and picked up a pair of long, very fine tweezers. "This is the pseudo-flesh of a shifter, unfortunately harvested after its death," he said, raising the glass cover from a bowl and lifting out a thin slice of pink-grey skin from the salt solution it was submerged in. "Touch it."

Dean glanced at his father. John nodded unwillingly. Reaching out a tentative finger, Dean let it slip over the wet skin, nose wrinkling up involuntarily at the feel.

Immediately, the piece of flesh held by the tweezers began to dry, to become paler, several golden freckles appearing scattered across it.

"You see, it is not in the will of the shifter that the changes occur, but in the chemical and biological composition of the skin." He dropped the skin back into the solution and covered it. "A genetic anomaly, but unlike the mutants, one that has been around for many, many thousands of years."

"For what purpose?" John asked, looking curiously at the skin.

"I don't know, precisely," Gillette admitted, setting the tweezers into a dish of alcohol. "My theories are still evolving, and as yet, unproven."

Walking away, he continued over his shoulder, "However, these creatures exist on every continent and in every culture on this planet, and they did not, as Mr Darwin has so very eloquently explained for every natural species on earth, evolve due to a niche requirement in the eco-system. They were, I believe, placed here or created here for a specific purpose that is, as yet, unknown to us."

"God's sense of humour?" Abely suggested, winking at Dean.

"Doubtful," Gillette said, turning back to them at the door. "Irony is more His style. In any case, there are a number of things I've been working on to make the hunting of these things more efficient and more effective, and I'd very much like you to see them."

They followed him out of the lab and up the stairs.

* * *

Dean stood beside Ellen and watched the two vehicles pull out of the lot, Elkin's 1935 jet-black Jaguar body long and elegantly curving, the huge engine taking up half the length of the car. He could just make out his father riding shotgun beside the vampire hunter through the darkly tinted glass windows. Bobby Singer's rebuilt '45 Dodge truck, a patchwork of flat, coloured primer coatings over the high engine casing and long, extended back, rumbled out onto the road after it. The auxiliary caterpillars tracks were hidden away under the body and a salt-soaked, welded iron box sat behind the cab, holding the hunter's tool and weapons and providing completely protected accommodation in a pinch. Bobby lifted a hand briefly as he pulled out of the yard, heading in the opposite direction from the Jag, six wheels churning up the gravel road and sending clouds of dust billowing over the fields.

"How long will they be?" he asked the woman next to him.

Ellen smiled humourlessly and laid a hand on his shoulder. "As long it takes, hon," she said shortly. Bill would be going out in a week's time and she preferred not to think about that while he was still here. "You've got a class with Caleb, don't you?"

He nodded absently and followed her into the building, looking around when they hit the dim interior for the older boy. Sammy was over by the billiards table, with Ellen's daughter and a half-dozen other small children. His brother was easy going, he thought, watching the game they were playing for a moment. He got on with everyone and didn't seem to be worried about their father taking off and leaving them. Shaking off the thought impatiently, he turned and saw Caleb, with three boys and the girl from the previous night, filling a booth on the other side of the room.

Walking slowly over there, he thought about the kids he'd met here. Saul was okay. Mickey ran his mouth too much, considering he was two years younger than his older brother. The fourth boy was twelve, Bill Harvelle's nephew, Jeremy Tucker, just known as Tuck. He'd met him this morning and wasn't sure about him yet. The girl, Saffron Huxley, was fourteen and the daughter of the local preacher, a man who gave services in his stone and timber church on Sundays and hunted revenants every other day with a Bible and an eighteen-inch cross that concealed a silver knife. Caleb said she was a fair shot, and had plenty of brains, but she never let anyone forget it either.

"You ready for some real archery, Deano?" Tuck asked as he approached the booth. "Delaney said we can try the cross-bows today."

Dean squashed the spurt of annoyance at the nickname, which fortunately only Tuck thought was cool, and the desire to point out that he'd been using a cross-bow for the last year, although he'd only been able to draw it in the last six months. _Action not words_, his father's voice said in his head and he nodded, forcing his mouth into a confident smirk.

"Let's go," Caleb said, waving an arm at them and easing his long legs out of the booth more slowly. "Your dad's with Daniel, and he's the best vamp hunter of everyone, you know," he said quietly to Dean as he fell into step beside him.

"Yeah, I know." Dean lifted his chin slightly, pretending that worrying about his father was something he never did. "Just wondering what the weight of the cross-bows will be?"

"Oh," Caleb said, seeing through the pretence and picking it up readily. "Delaney said we'll work on the recurves and long-bows first. Those long-bows have a big pull at full-size, but we're only allowed to work on the smaller ones, and I warn you, Delaney'll have you and your brother making your own before he'll say he's done with you."

"Aren't Gil's firearms a better choice for most hunters?" Dean frowned.

"In close quarters, yeah, no question," Caleb said, blinking as they passed out of the dark bar into the bright summer sunshine. He slowed and turned a little to follow the others. "But if you're up against a pack of skinwalkers and there's only a couple of you, you can draw and shoot faster with a bow and get the silver to the heart much more accurately than you can with even Gil's guns."

Dean nodded thoughtfully. He'd heard of skinwalkers, but hadn't seen them or talked to anyone who'd hunted them. Abely said they were more common in the south-western states.

"Here we are," Caleb said as they rounded the corner of the building and walked out onto a roughly-mown field behind it. Targets were set at varying distances across the width of it, and at the end, the tall hunter whose long, chestnut hair was pulled back into a ponytail, stood handing out the bows.

"Do all the hunters teach the kids stuff?" Dean asked, hurrying a little to keep up with his friend's long strides.

"Sure do," Caleb said. "Most have their specialties and we learn those direct from the best in the fields. Gil teaches us a lot as well, and Ellen and Bill, and we have to do an apprenticeship with one hunter for two years when we turn eighteen."

They reached Delaney and Dean looked away self-consciously as the man's gaze raked him from head to foot.

"Here, try this one," Delaney said, handing him a four-foot bow. "It's got a pull on it but I suspect you'll manage."

Dean took the bow, casting a surreptitious glance at Tuck and Saul's. His was the longer, by almost six inches. Caleb took a five-foot bow and the quiver of goose-feather fletched arrows resignedly.

"Alright, kids, find your targets, take your stances and nock on the grey geese!" Delaney said loudly. "Let's see what you've remembered."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

_**June 20, 1988. Harvelle's Roadhouse, Wayne, Nebraska**_

Dean sat in the back of the booth, a pile of homework in front of him, the pen in his hand dripping ink onto the pages unnoticed as he studied the people in the bar.

They were of all ages, although with many of the adults, it was difficult to place how old they were, their faces were hard and lined, even when they moved with the fluid grace of the young.

He knew a few now, by name and face, if nothing else. Trenton Gulpidge, leaning against the polished timber bar and talking to Ellen, was a wraith hunter. Tall and lean, he was dressed in muted shades of green and grey, the hip-length coat, that Dean knew held a range of silver knives in sheaths stitched on both sides of the front opening, stayed on, even in summer, like the thick, water-proofed boots that were laced to the knee. He had a long, mournful-looking face that made it easy to underestimate the man. Dean had seen him take home plenty of winnings in the regular games of poker at the roadhouse over the past few days.

At a table to one side of the bar, two men sat nursing a brown jug of whiskey. Rufus Turner and Abraham Quick were hunters who criss-crossed the country, hunting whatever they came across, Caleb had told him. Both looked travel-worn and hard, the dust-covered clothing perpetually hidden beneath long, worn, black leather coats, their voices a soft rumble, hiding their conversation. Rufus had lost his family a few years earlier and had disappeared for a year. Abe had dragged him out of hiding and back into the life. He looked at the hard face of Turner, lines of bitterness bracketing his mouth, and wondered if there was a man still in mourning under that stony exterior.

Lorena MacKinnon, a witch-hunter, was talking to Delia Hexham, both women compromising style for functionality. Lorena's thick, blonde hair was wound into a coronet plait under a dark-emerald silk hat, its black lace veil covering half her face and hiding the scars that ran from cheek into her hairline on one side. Tightly-fitted, her dark-green suede jacket was belted around her narrow waist with a wide, black leather belt that carried two knives, a long machete and a slender, silver stiletto, on either side. The bulky brass and silver body-armour she wore over her left arm moved easily and Dean mentally re-assessed her age upwards. It took time and a lot of practice to use the part-armour, part-weapon device so easily, watching her pick up her glass of brandy gracefully with it.

Delia was a different matter. In dark brown leather pants, tucked into chunky leather boots, a white silk shirt mostly hidden beneath a thickened vest of boiled and reinforced leather, her hair was cut as short as a man's and she seemed to make no attempt at all to look even remotely girlish. A leather skullcap, with its protective mask dangling to one side now, framed a thin, smooth-skinned face with large blue eyes and a sulkily pouting mouth. Caleb had a monumental crush on the slender woman, and had told him several times, in tones of hushed awe, that Delia hunted werewolves, up in the Black Hills to the north and west. Just hidden beneath the upstanding white collar of her shirt, he could see the end of a thick, red scar. His friend said it was a claw scar, though he couldn't really believe Caleb on the matter.

Cornelius Taylor was in his seventies, long white hair tied back with a string of rawhide and his tanned face seamed with creases, the light-coloured eyes giving nothing away as he hunched over the table in a booth, writing in a battered journal, several leather-bound books surrounding him. He was in the same booth every day, muttering to himself. Ellen said he was still hunting. Ainslie Umpleby was nineteen; curly, black hair cut short and sallow olive skin smooth and unlined as he joked with his friends, their pointed looks in the direction of the two women talking at the bar making it obvious what their conversation was about. Saul had told him that Ainslie was a bounder, who talked loud about his hunts but hadn't done much more than a few salt'n'burns down near the state lines last year.

Under the long billiards tables, there were more than a dozen little kids, playing quietly, Sammy among them, their parents seated around the room, recognisable by the occasional piercing looks they directed at the tables, doing their fast head-counts before turning back and resuming their conversations.

_A whole world of hunters_, he thought. He jumped slightly as Caleb dropped into the booth next to him, looking with a disparaging eye at the mess on his notebook.

"Think Craven's got a thing for modern art?"

Dean looked down at the spreading ink blot over his book and scowled at the pen, dropping it on the table and ripping the ruined pages out of the book.

"Penny for 'em," the older boy said, lifting a curious brow at him.

Shaking his head, Dean looked at the ink-stained white handkerchief in his hand and balled it up. "Nothing, really."

The other boy looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. "Get this finished, I want to show you something."

Dean looked at the pile of school work with distaste. "I can leave it."

"No, you can't." Caleb grinned at him. "Even if Craven didn't take strips off you, Ellen sure would," he said, flicking a glance at the woman behind the bar. As usual, she turned to look at them both, somehow attuned to knowing when she was being mentioned.

Giving her a weak smile, Dean wiped the pen, dipped it back in the ink pot and bent his head over his books, trying to look like he'd never paused. "Alright, ten minutes," he muttered from the corner of his mouth.

"Out the back, the shed where the big fire-truck's kept," Caleb told him, sliding out of the booth again and sauntering with an exaggerated casualness through the tables to the door.

Dean started to read fast. Their school work consisted of half the normal curriculum, reading and writing and math, a smattering of science and geography and history, and half of the lore of the creatures most of the children living in the small town would grow up to hunt. He'd tackled the normal stuff first, he just had the herbal lore and an essay on revenants to complete.

_What are the uses for night jessamine and how it is prepared?_

He started writing.

* * *

_**One hour later**_

Cursing under his breath as he tripped over another unknown object in the pitch-black darkness of the shed, Dean felt the mostly buried longing for his brother's flashlight rise up again.

"Caleb?" he whispered as loud as he dared, stopping for a moment as he heard a noise on the other side of the shed.

"Yeah, here," Caleb's voice ghosted back to him, another rustle ten yards or so to his right and in front of him pinpointing the older boy's location.

"You got a light?"

"Oh, hellfire, Winchester, don't you have enhancers yet?"

Dean heard the apology under the disbelief in the other boy's voice and scowled. He didn't have any_-friggin'-_thing, let alone the vision-enhancers that all the kids here seemed to have as a matter of course. His father hadn't had the money to purchase more than one set from the inventor.

He heard another rustle much closer and stopped, sensing Caleb's approach. A hand grabbed his and his breath hissed in as he just managed to stop himself from flinching back at that unanticipated touch.

"Hold onto me, I'll lead you through," Caleb murmured, turning and dragging the younger boy after him. "How come you don't have a set?"

"How am I supposed to see this thing without light?" Dean ignored the question, his voice irritable.

"You can see it through these," Caleb said as he stopped, his hand braced behind him to Dean from running into him. "Here."

The fine wire frames were pressed into his hands and he put them on, blinking suddenly as Caleb's face leapt into view, depthless and colourless and faintly glowing green. Behind the boy, Dean could see the interior of the shed, the fire-truck hulking on one side, bales of straw stacked up against the end. He turned to look back the way he thought he'd come in and saw the farm implements scattered across the floor, none showing any signs of damage from the repeated impacts with his knees, ankles and shins.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" he asked the older boy, turning his head, and this time, jumping back as he saw the severed head lying in the straw beside Caleb, his heart leaping and galloping somewhere high in his throat at the shock.

The head was huge and it was not the only one there. As his pulse began to settle, Dean stepped closer to the pile, counting four separate heads, all canine, the long, thick fur matted with blood. In all four, the eyes were open and he leaned closer as he realised that they weren't animal eyes, the pupils were small and round, the irises also round, showing white to either side. Two had blue eyes.

"What are they?"

"Werewolf heads," Caleb said, his hushed voice filled with a muted but awe-struck excitement. "Delia brought 'em in last night."

"Werewolves transform back into men when they're killed," Dean argued, his voice equally hushed.

"Not these," Caleb said. "Delia told me that Gil gave her special bullets for her last few hunts, bullets that would petrify the monsters in the shapes they died in."

"Why?"

"Got me, but they're incredible, aren't they?"

"Completely awesome," Dean agreed, lifting a hand and carefully opening one of the elongated jaws wider. The long tongue had been pink, now it was becoming grey, at the end and around the edges. He could see the big carnassials at the back of the jaw, the long, slightly curved fangs, the shorter, sharper incisors between them at the front. Why would Gil want the creatures kept in the monster state, he wondered? Unless it was to figure out the cure for their bite.

"Is four a lot?" he asked Caleb. "I thought they hunted alone."

"I'm not sure," Caleb admitted, obviously realising that it was a fertile field for conversation with the young woman he couldn't take his eyes off, one that he'd wasted.

Dean grinned to himself. "Something else you could ask Delia?" he suggested innocently.

"Yeah, I will!"

Stepping backwards and looking at the heads, Dean felt a shiver run down his spine as he recognised that this was how he would see these creatures, when he was old enough to hunt them. Massive men-beasts, stronger, faster, with better senses and the ability to hide among a human population, at least for three weeks of the month.

"Come on, we'd better go," Caleb said suddenly and Dean smothered a snort as he realised what his friend's urgency was likely to be about. "Gimme the enhancers back."

Taking them off reluctantly, the blackness pressed against Dean's eyes and he was acutely aware of the smell of the heads now, a rank, foul odour faintly laced with the ongoing process of decomposition. He took a step back and turned as Caleb gripped his shoulder, leading him back toward the door.

* * *

_**Boulder, Colorado**_

John glanced at the vampire hunter as he buckled his armour on. Elkins had laid out the dart-guns, along with the cylinders containing the darts on the panel of the car, and was checking the action of both guns again. They were long and cumbersome, and had no range to speak of, apparently, but the series of tests Daniel had insisted on in Burlington had proven their accuracy within a twenty foot circle of the target. That was enough, the hunter had said.

Below them, spread across the foothills, the small town of Boulder twinkled in the darkness, its hydro-electric plant providing just enough power to enable the town to survive. They'd bypassed the town, climbing into the hills on an older gravelled road to the hamlet of Chautauqua and Elkins had coasted them down in the darkness to a silent cul-de-sac surrounded by woodland.

"They're holed up in a big, old building, right against the flank of the mountains," he said now, looking across at John.

"How'd you find them?" John asked, tightening the final strap and flexing his fingers carefully in the metal and silk glove.

"There were some kills in Boulder, then a lot more in the shanties in and around Denver," Elkins told him shortly. "Didn't take much investigation to figure out where they were based."

"And you would have gone in alone?"

Elkins looked up and grinned coldly. "Not many dumb enough to volunteer for a vampire run."

John looked down, flicking the safeties for the weapons incorporated in the hydraulic armour off.

"Alright, enough fun and games," Elkins said, loading the darts and passing one of the guns to John. "Vampires have been around for thousands of years. Gil reckons that vampires were originally created from one of those backfiring gifts from the gods, the desire to live forever. Says it's a disease too."

"You don't think it is?" John asked, picking up a soft leather pouch and putting the extra rounds inside it.

"Ah, look, it might be a disease. It's got some pretty weird symptoms, but they're consistent with every single transfer," Elkins said with a small shrug. "Not really my department."

"You don't believe in his cure?"

"Well, John, he hasn't really found a cure yet, and there're damned few volunteers lining up to help him test it anyhow." Elkins pulled on a helmet, adjusting the multi-coloured lens arrangement that covered one eye completely. "He says that the fledgling can't have fed. That rules out most of the ones I meet, and I got no way of telling if a fang has fed or not, not a newly made one."

"You think this is a pipe-dream?" John buckled on the holster and pouch onto his belt, settling them against one hip and looking at the vampire hunter.

"No," Daniel said, turning to him. "One of the good guys gets turned, and we got a cure for it and can keep them from feeding, that's a helluva thing. That's something that'll mean we get more vamp hunters, that safety net."

He caught John's look of surprise. "There're four of us at the moment, for the whole goddamned country, so don't get me wrong, I'm all for Gil figuring it out and telling every hunter that it's no longer a one-way ticket to Purgatory if they get a mouthful of some fang's blood."

Nodding slowly, John asked, "I guess it's the same for the other creatures then? Not many who'll hunt them in case they get turned?"

"Pretty much," the ginger-haired man said. "Most hunters hunt one type for one reason – revenge. Most hunters get into the life for the one reason," he added, lifting a brow at his inexperienced partner. "Or am I wrong about you?"

Looking away, John shrugged. "No, you're not wrong."

"I don't mean to pry," Elkins told him expressionlessly. "Just need to know where we're all standing."

He looked up at the sky, seeing the first pale fingers of light brightening the sky to the east.

"When the sun comes over the horizon, we'll go in."

* * *

The sun was at least a hand's span over the horizon when they stopped outside the property boundaries of the massive house, crouching in the thick undergrowth that had grown all around it.

"Their vision and hearing is acute, John," Daniel breathed beside him. "And their motion perception is extreme. If one does wake, freeze, don't move a muscle or a hair. The armour will help with their thermal awareness, but not for long."

John nodded nervously. They'd sat on the hillside, half-a-mile distant, waiting for the sun to rise and had watched the monsters come into the house, shadows among the shadows and more than Elkins had counted on, he knew. Twenty-one vamps were inside, they thought, but despite the gauge that Elkins carried on one wrist, another of Gil's toys that was supposed to be able 'see' areas of warmth differentiated from cooler areas, Daniel had already pointed out that if some of them hadn't fed, they wouldn't be filled with warm blood and their temperatures would be the same as the ambient temperature of their surroundings. So, there could be more. Easily.

"Let's go."

He followed the vampire hunter down the hillside, watching his footing on the rough ground, stepping over or around the dried twigs and branches that littered the forest floor, veering past the clumps of bracken and low-growing shrubs, ducking under instead of pushing aside branches from the saplings. At the back of the house, the glass-less frame of a conservatory leaned drunkenly out from the rear wall and Elkins picked his way across the slippery stone pavers and shards of broken panes to a plain wooden door.

_Most vamps will sleep together in the room_, Elkin's voice said in John's mind. _In a place that's easy to defend, but where they can't be trapped by fire or a concerted attack_. He knew that Daniel thought that would be the main hall of this place.

He waited as Elkins dripped a small container of vegetable oil over the hinges of the door and into the lock, watching the grounds as the hunter picked the lock silently and turned the door handle. There was a faint scrape from the swollen wood as it crossed the threshold, but that was all he could hear. He stepped inside, and nodded as Elkins gestured at the staircase that ran from the back of the broad, stone-flagged kitchen to the upper floors.

_Keep to the outside edges_, John told himself as he climbed the servants' staircase to the top floor and came out in a narrow hallway, lined with open doorways. He stayed to the edges of the hall as well, to avoid any creaks from the boards, glancing into each room as he passed. The windows were grimy and bare, the early morning light flooding into them, and he didn't really think there'd be a danger up here.

The next floor down held the main bedrooms and guest rooms of the place, and to his surprise, they were also empty, bare and dusty with grey-coloured sheets thrown over the furniture. Did the fangs live just on the ground floor, he wondered? Or lower than that, in the basement?

The house had a grand, curving staircase from the main hall to the second floor and John paused at the top. In here, every window, including the high clerestory windows under the eaves and the tall, gothically arched windows above the stairs and the main door, were covered with thick material. The gloom at floor level was deep, and he dragged out the vision-enhancer he'd acquired from Gil, settling the thin wire frame over his nose and flicking through the lenses until he found one that brightened his vision, showing the sleeping bodies sprawled over mattresses and in hammocks around the wide, deep hall, all of them outlined with a faint yellow glow.

_Our eyes are used to perceiving a quite limited spectrum of light_, Gil had said when he'd handed over the enhancers. _We can perceive more, but we need help. These lenses are designed to amplify both the available light, and the way our own optic nerves perceive the shapes visible in those lesser-used waves_.

He glanced across the room and saw Daniel standing by the hallway entrance to the rear rooms of the house, unrecognisable behind the helmet and face mask, the glint of his articulated body armour dimmed in the charcoal shadows. The hunter took a step into the room and John began to descend the stairs, the soft whirr of the gears and servos in his own armoured arm barely audible, the click of the dart-gun in his left hand sounding much louder. He winced and hesitated, then continued when the figures he could see remained unmoving.

The guns were fired with a cylinder of compressed air, and the first four vampires barely stirred as the darts hit them in the neck and chest, the soft hiss of air and thud as they met flesh unnoticeable, even in the quiet of the room. He caught a movement from his peripheral vision and let his breath out silently as he realised it was Elkins moving along the wall of the room, turning back to continue shooting, noting that their breathing changed within forty-five seconds of being hit, less if he got the dart into a large artery.

The last four were sleeping together, draped over each other on the mattress on the floor and John took them out, one by one, the last one opening its eyes and staring at him as the dart pumped its load of poisoned blood into its vein and the open eyes slowly closed again.

Elkins was right, John thought, his pulse hammering against the base of his throat as he watched the eyelids drop. Their eyes were different, brilliant, bright, too vivid in colour and too intense to look at for long.

"John, machete out," Elkins said in a low voice from the other side of the room. "Cut off the heads."

For the next twenty minutes, he felt more like a butcher than a hunter, but even the gruesome work impinged a pattern, a rhythm upon him – lift, swing, feel the bite of the sharp edge through flesh and bone, watch for the head to roll clear and turn to the next, lifting the long, thick blade, seeing the droplets flying off the edge. None of the monsters had moved at all, lost in the deep sleep of the dead man's blood.

"What now?" he asked Daniel, panting a little from the steady exertion.

"Burn it down," Elkins said pragmatically. "Get the arum oil from the back."

Nodding, John pulled off the vision-enhancer as he walked back across the hall to the back door, closing the set of hinged lenses and tucking the delicate frame into his inside jacket pocket. They'd brought two metal containers of the highly flammable and volatile liquid, distilled from _Helicodiceros muscivorus__._ The odour of the viscous oil would also remove any trace of their own scents from the house, even after burning, something that Elkins had repeatedly insisted was vital to hunting vampires.

Without the vision-enhancer, he didn't notice the slight movement in the darkness of the side passage leading to the eastern wing of the house.

* * *

_**June 26, 1988. Harvelle's Roadhouse, Wayne, Nebraska**_

Ellen glanced into the boys' bedroom as she walked down the hall. The door was wide open and both bags were packed and sitting at the ends of the neatly-made beds. She smiled to herself and headed for the stairs leading down to the saloon. John and Daniel had arrived back early this morning.

In the big public room, with its permanent odours of tobacco and whiskey and ale and the faint blue haze clinging to the ceilings, the booths and tables were filled, Jacey's quartet of guitars and fiddle and piano playing folk tunes on the narrow stage on the opposite side of the room from the billiards tables, the music just audible above the low hum of conversation. Ellen lifted her skirts as she came into the room, sweeping across to the bar, her razor-sharp gaze noting every person and every order in her domain.

"Carl, make sure that Parsons and Mike get refills, please," she said to the young woman serving behind the polished counter. Carlene looked over to the indicated table and nodded, drawing another two jugs of crisp apple cider from the barrel under the bar.

John and Daniel were sitting at one of the larger tables, talking to Gil. Beside his father, Dean sat very straight, his entire attention on the conversation between the three men. On John's lap, Sammy was fidgeting and twisting around, looking for his friends, she thought, the adult conversation not engaging enough to hold him.

When Carl returned to the bar, depositing the empty jugs in the sink, Ellen walked over to the table, plucking Sammy from John's lap.

"You'll be here a bit longer, won't you, John?" she asked.

"Till Abely gets back," John confirmed, looking up at her.

"Sammy, go and play, but don't go too far, sweetheart," she told the child as she set him down. Sam ran confidently through the tables to the back rooms that served as offices and unofficial drunk tanks, looking for his gang of friends, and Ellen turned and sat down between Daniel and Gil, waving her hand impatiently as all three men half-rose awkwardly from their chairs.

"How were the dart-guns?" she asked Daniel.

"Effective and quiet," he said, picking up his glass. "The nest was a lot bigger than I'd thought it would be, and we managed to take them all out without a scratch to show for it."

"Lovely, lovely!" Gil said, leaning across the table. Dean grabbed his glass before the extravagant gestures of the inventor could sweep it off the table, finishing the lemonade in a gulp.

"I think I might be on the verge of something big with the cure for vampirism," he added in a lower tone, looking around the room. "I've been going over the notes of the Campbells again, and they referred to a process of strengthening the heart – which has, of course, been stopped from the moment of the petrification process – and I believe that will actually speed the drawing of the poison from the cells."

John blinked at him and Daniel sighed. "Gil, how the hell are we going to be able to get the blood of a fang in a nest situation? They're not gonna tell us which one made them, and some nests have more than one master."

"I don't know, Daniel," Gil said, his eyes huge behind the magnification of his glasses. "That's more your line of work, surely? We can't exactly examine them in a laboratory and at this stage I would be a bit uncertain of bringing a vampire here and restraining it in the attempt to make fledglings from ordinary citizens, purely in order to study them."

John snorted and Ellen laughed outright at the vampire hunter's expression. Dean frowned a little as he looked around at the adults. He thought Gil's point was pretty valid.

Daniel was saved from having to reply by the thunderous roar of an engine driving into the roadhouse's gravelled yard.

Ellen looked through the half-glass doors, her face lighting in a smile as she recognised the Dodge truck that pulled off to one side.

"At least we should know a bit more about what happened to the order now," she said in a low voice to Gil. John looked at Elkins, catching his eye as he rose from his chair. The vampire hunter shrugged noncommittally.

"It was good to meet you, John and you handled yourself well out there," he said, shaking his hand. "Any time you got a yen to hunt some vampires, you know where to find me."

He bowed slightly to Ellen and turned back to Gil. "I'll drop off the samples we took from the fangs tonight."

"Thank you, Daniel, that would be very much appreciated," Gil said.

Elkins turned away as the door to the saloon swung open and Bobby, Abely and Bill Harvelle walked in.

"What was that about?" John asked Ellen. She smiled a little ruefully, shaking her head.

"He and Bobby have a bit of a feud going on," she said, her gaze on her husband. "Nothing but smarting pride, the pair of them."

Dean watched Ellen get up, scrambling from his seat as Gil and John also rose. None of the three men coming into the room looked all that happy, he thought uncertainly. Tired and bruised and grimy from the road, Bill nevertheless pulled his wife into a close embrace, and Dean looked away from the vulnerability of the expression on Bill's face as his eyes closed and his arms tightened around the woman held within them.

Bobby glanced at the bar and Dean saw Carl nod at the tacit request, bending to get a tray and fill it with glasses. He watched Gil's eyes meet Abely's, a silent question and answer passing between them, and felt his father's hand drop lightly onto his shoulder.

"Dean, go upstairs and get my journal, please," John said in a low voice to his son.

Dean hesitated for a moment, glancing between his father's expressionless face and Abely's, then he nodded and left the table, heading for the stairs. Whatever had happened in Kansas City, it hadn't been good, he thought to himself, wondering if his father and Abely would talk about it later. It seemed to him like he'd been dismissed from the conversation about to take place.

He took the stairs three at a time, sling-shotting around the last big newel post and into the corridor, and got to his father's room in record time, throwing open the door and heading straight for the bag on the bed. The journal, a battered leather-bound book that his father had bought in Blue Earth and filled with the details of his hunts and discoveries, was kept locked, the small silver key on a chain around his father's neck. He had never been allowed to look in it.

Picking it up and closing the bag, he walked fast from the room, closing the door behind him and running for the stairs. Maybe he wouldn't miss too much.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

_**Harvelle's Roadhouse, Wayne, Nebraska**_

They'd moved to another table, Dean saw as he hit the bottom of the stairs and slowed down. A larger table closer to the bar and further from any of the other patrons. All six adults sitting around the table had serious, cold expressions on their faces now.

Dean slid the book onto the table beside his father's elbow and stood near his shoulder, listening to the conversation and hoping that he was inconspicuous enough not to be noticed.

"The place was hit hard, and more'n once," Bobby was saying, fingers tangling in the scrubby beard as he scratched at it absently.

"But the traps – and the wards," Ellen said, looking from him to Bill in confusion. "It was better protected than almost anywhere else."

"Wasn't demons doing it, hon," Bill said, his gaze going from her to Gil. "We think it was the government."

"What?" she exclaimed, staring at him. "Why?"

"The books they kept there have always been on the lists, Ellen," Gil said gently. "It was really only a matter of time before someone said something to the wrong person."

"Are they alright? Did you get them out?" she asked Bill.

"They got themselves out," Abely answered. "We met them at the store-house and took them to Jim's. They're fine, Ellen."

"That's something," she muttered. "If it was government intervention why are you all looking like someone died?"

Bobby glanced at Abely. "We don't think it was a slip that put them in the spotlight," he said, a little unwillingly. "There's a very high possibility, from what Emerson's said about the situation in the city at the moment, that the COG government itself may be controlled by demons."

Dean's eyes widened and he bit his lip to keep from saying anything.

"You said that demons weren't allowed to walk on this plane, only the half-breeds could act directly on humanity," John said slowly, looking at Bill.

"That was true for the last five thousand years," Bobby said heavily. "But something changed. You saw that demon, John, looking out of the eyes of a normal person. Possessing them."

"I –" John started to say, then hesitated, the blue eyes turning to molten yellow in his mind's eye again. "Maybe I was wrong?"

Abely shook his head. "No, what happened to your family, John, no half-breed could've done it. The old rules were only about influence, never allowing direct action."

His gaze slid to Dean and sharpened, and Dean felt his stomach drop as Bobby, Bill, Ellen and John became aware of him standing there, heads turning to look at him. He felt like an unwelcome bug at a picnic.

John looked down at the book by his arm and sighed. "Dean, could you check on Sammy, please?"

Nodding, Dean turned away from the table, brows pulling together as he went back over the last bit of the conversation. Nothing they'd done in school had covered demons. Caleb said they did some theory later on, but he'd more or less said the same things as Abely just had. Demons were not allowed out. Could not walk around. Could only whisper and seduce and tempt.

* * *

Watching his son cross the room, John rubbed a hand over his face tiredly then looked back at Bill. "Jim said it wasn't the first time, our family, wasn't the first time it'd happened."

"We didn't believe the reports we heard," Bill admitted, squeezing his wife's hand as it slid into his. "Didn't want to believe them, and had no means of verifying them. Jim's been doing the research on it, and Emerson. Maybe between them they can figure out what's going on, but the way those people in the city were behaving …" he trailed off, his eyes closing briefly.

John shook his head impatiently. "What does it mean? If they're walking around? What can we do about it?"

Gillette smiled fondly at him. "All about the action, John. The truth is, there may be nothing at all we can _do_ about it, as you say. The Church, back when it had real power, had exorcism rituals, protective sigils, which Emerson was certainly using. But it takes so little for a demon to change a person's mind, even without possession, even without pain, just through its lies, that I don't see any way, short of full revolution, that you will be able to change what has happened to the people who have come into contact with them."

Ellen looked at the trickle of customers that were slowly filling the place now that afternoon was firmly established. "We need to move to the office for this conversation, gentlemen," she said quietly. "Bill, see if Rufus and Abe are still around, they need to hear about this too. Arrange it for nine."

She got to her feet, the sound of the chairs being scraped back loud over the wooden floor as the men at the table rose together with her, and she walked back to the bar, the wide smile on her face belying the feelings that were churning in her chest.

John watched her cross the room, flirting mildly with the men and complimenting the women on their attire, and shook his head slightly, catching Bill's eye.

"She's something to see, isn't she?" Bill grinned at him.

"And a half," John agreed readily.

"John, we'll eat with Moses tonight, leave the boys with his missus when we come back here," Abely said.

John nodded distractedly, looking around the room for his sons.

"Are we going?" Dean materialised next to his father's elbow and John looked down, brow creased as he wondered what his son might've heard.

"Tomorrow," he told him. "We'll stay with Moses and his family tonight."

* * *

Dean watched Moses and his father walk up the crooked, gravelled path to the road, and turn left, heading back up the hill to the roadhouse. Gas lamps threw warm yellow pools of light unevenly over the cobbled street, the big glass lanterns lit from the by-product gas of the generators that ran the town and the coke factory on the other side of the valley. Some poor schmuck had to light them at sundown and turn them off at sunrise and clean every single glass pane every two days, Caleb had told him, but it beat the candle lanterns in Blue Earth, and the pockets of deep-black night that lay in between them. Especially now.

He turned away from the stoop and closed the door, shooting home the iron bolts automatically as a triumphant shout came from the living room, followed by a fusillade of counter-arguments from the three other boys.

"You alright, Dean?" Abigail Karnak stopped in the hallway, wiping her hands on the voluminous apron tied around her waist and looking worriedly at him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said quickly, his smile reflexive as he sidled past her and turned into the living room. It was not the time to draw the attention of adults, he thought, slowing down and looking at the elaborate wind-up metal racetrack that Caleb, his brother and the Karnak boys were gathered around. The game was a farce, he thought, not for the first time, no skill or experience could help you win, not even winding up your horse till the springs creaked gave any more likelihood of winning the race than Sammy's weak-fisted efforts.

He walked to the other end of the room and dropped into the armchair by the window, twitching one edge of the curtain aside and staring at the shadowy street.

"I forfeit my prizes and my steed," Caleb said from the table a moment later, leaving behind a chorus of groans. Dean heard his footfalls over the floor.

"What's up?" the older boy asked him, leaning against the windowsill.

"Not here," Dean said in a low voice, flicking a glance over his shoulder at the three boys still sitting around the toy.

"Upstairs?" Caleb suggested, straightening up and walking out, Dean following.

Caleb's room, which for tonight, Dean was sharing, was in the attic, and they walked to the end of the hall, opening the narrow, panelled door next to the airing cupboard and climbing the steep stairs into the high-pitched gabled roofspace. Caleb lit the candle stick on the nightstand and settled himself cross-legged on his bed, looking quizzically at Dean as he sat on the other single bed.

"Well?"

"What have you been hearing about demons?" Dean asked, chewing the corner of his lower lip.

"Demons?" Caleb stared at him. "Just the myths. Why?"

"Uncle Jim told us that there's a demon hunting Dad," the younger boy said slowly, unsure of how much he should tell his friend, if anything at all. No one had specifically told him not to tell, but he knew that information like that, getting around, could cause a lot of problems, for his father and Abely, and possibly for others.

"Demons can't hunt people, Dean," Caleb said, shaking his head. "They're in a different dimension, all they can do is whisper through the cracks."

He looked at Dean's expression and felt a chill settle into his stomach. "Whatever Pastor Murphy's been drinking, tell him lay off it," he added, not liking that expression at all.

For a long moment the two boys looked at each other, then Dean sighed and nodded, his gaze cutting away. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Damned right, I'm right," Caleb said sharply, not feeling the rush of relief he'd expected. He didn't know the younger boy all that well, but he knew enough to know that Dean had backed off, not relinquished his ideas.

He felt a corkscrewing tension in his neck and gritted his teeth, the next words coming out of their own volition. "Fuck! Don't snowball me, Winchester, what do you know?"

Dean looked back at him. The older boy was scared, he could see that. Fighting it, but scared.

"When Abely came back, with Bill and Bobby, I overheard some of their conversation, in the saloon," he said, his face flickering with shadow as a thin draught trembled the flame of the candle. "They said that Emerson's shop was shut down by the government, but Bobby thought that maybe the demons were controlling the people who'd given the orders."

"Demons can't possess –" Caleb started to say then fell silent. "That was Kansas City, Dean, that's a long way from here. And there was a lot of talk about the way their government was running things, for years."

"But if a demon, or more than one, is out, what's to stop more from coming out?" Dean asked him, his voice thickening a little. "Bobby said that my dad saw a demon possessing someone. I don't know what he meant."

Sighing deeply, Caleb shook his head again, more slowly. "There's an old legend, Moses knows it. He told me that way back, demons and angels used to walk among us, here on our plane. They could take over people; possess their bodies if they had the person's consent. With demons, sometimes the consent wasn't consciously given. With the angels it always had to be spoken freely." He shrugged, seeing Dean's next question on the boy's face. "Then something happened – I don't remember exactly what, some big war or something – and all the demons and angels were shut back on their own planes, locked away and forbidden to come here." He gestured vaguely around the room. "They must've had a way to get through, sometimes, because there are half-breeds, human-demon or human-angel children, who live here and who try to persuade humanity to one side or the other."

"You think that's what my dad saw?" Dean frowned, thinking back over the conversation at the roadhouse. "Abely said no half-breed could've done what happened to my mother."

Caleb looked at him uncertainly. "I don't know what happened to your mother."

Dean bit his lip, wishing his words back suddenly. "I don't know what happened either, not really. She died in my brother's nursery, when he was six months old. There was a fire –" he stopped and shook his head. "Dad doesn't talk about it, not to me. I asked Uncle Jim and he just said that there was a demon hunting Dad."

"Are you worried it's going to come after you?"

"I don't know, maybe not me, but what if it comes after Dad?" Dean said, his gaze dropping. "I don't know anything about demons."

"Alright, here, pass me that pen," Caleb said, gesturing at the nightstand. "And the note paper."

Dean leaned across and picked up the pen and paper, getting up to carry the small ink pot to the other boy's bed.

"This," Caleb said, dipping the pen into the ink and drawing a circle on the paper, "is a protection symbol against demon possession."

"If demons aren't supposed to be able to –"

"I know," Caleb cut him off tightly. "Just shut up and watch, okay?"

He drew out the symbol from memory. They'd started studying the older myths this year. He hadn't seen the point in learning the wards for something that couldn't reach to this plane, but he'd memorised them anyway, wanting to prove himself to his foster-father if nothing else.

Dean looked at the symbol. "Is carrying that enough?"

"No," Caleb said, wiping off the pen and putting it and the ink pot back on the nightstand. "It needs to be deep in the skin, or cast into iron and worn to be of real use."

"Deep in the skin?"

"Tattooed." Caleb looked at him. "I ain't doing it, but if you're really worried, Max does tattoos, down the bottom of Mockingbird Lane. We could go in the morning."

"We're leaving tomorrow," Dean said worriedly.

"Maybe not that early," Caleb said, getting up from the bed. "Look, you paint that in blood, on your skin, or a door or the floor, that'll keep them away. There's supposed to be other stuff too but I haven't gotten that far yet."

"Where'm I supposed to get blood, Caleb?" Dean grated, staring at the drawing.

"Dwight's a butcher," the older boy suggested with a shrug. "He'd have it."

It was something, Dean acknowledged unwillingly. Not what he'd hoped for but a long way better than nothing at all.

"You boys gonna have seconds of pie?" Abigail's voice drifted up the stairs from the hall below them. They looked at each other and got up, Dean tucking the drawing into his shirt as Caleb blew out the candle.

* * *

The back room was next to Bill's office, a coal fire glowering on the tiled hearth pushing a steady heat into the room. John loosened his collar as the additional heat of the eight people squashed onto the long sofa and into the armchairs to either side made the room stifling.

Rufus leaned back in the chair, his expression shuttered over the glass he held. "KC had problems from the minute those mutton-headed book-haters got enough seats," he said.

"Yeah, well, they got bigger problems now," Bobby retorted, pushing his cap back and wiping his face.

"It's not just KC, Rufus," Abe said in a deep, soft voice. "The Children of God have opened churches and starting running for office in four other cities, including Lincoln and Des Moines, which are a lot closer to home. They're just getting started."

"'Children of God'," Gillette snorted into his brandy. "'Children of Ignorance' more to the point."

"They're gaining popularity because it's getting harder to get the coal to the cities and manufacturing has been forced to either close or move," Ellen said astringently to him. "People lose their jobs, they're looking for something to help them feed their families and COG has been more and more active in running charity shelters, feeding the poor, finding homes for families –"

"If they'd just read a book, they might get it through their thick skulls that the Germans were making diesel and gasoline from coal-gas since the 40's and we could be a lot –" Gillette pushed his glasses higher on his nose as he straightened up on the sofa, one arm waving and narrowly missing Lorena's glass.

"Enough," Bill said, pinning the inventor with a glare as he cut him off. "Not the core problem we're facing right now." He turned to Bobby. "Demons need consent to possess a person – how're they getting it with those anti-everything folks?"

"Got me," Bobby said, rubbing a finger over one brow. "But there must be a fair few things that'd be an irresistible temptation to them, on the sly."

"We can protect against a demon attack," Abely said, looking around the room at the hunters. "We can't do anything about a militia force sent on orders by a government lawfully elected into power." He turned to Bill and Ellen. "Lincoln's not that close, but what happens when they move into Norfolk? Or Sioux City, Bobby?"

"Abely's right," Lorena said. "We need to do something before their jurisdiction spreads to the communities. Here, and in Blue Earth, the majority of the town are hunters, but Sioux Falls and Humboldt, we're definitely the minority." She leaned forward on the sofa, her face shadowed by the lace veil. "There's something else. Since '72, witch-craft has been slowly growing, not just single operators, but covens, some of them run by two or three adepts. The last one I took out was in Rochester. They said the demons were here because the Devil was rising."

"Superstitious bullshit!" Rufus snorted, tossing back his whiskey. "Demons lie, Lorena, and they lie like rugs to witches."

"What _can_ we do?" John asked, looking from the witch-hunter to Bobby, then to Abely. "The last time I was in KC was five years ago, and even then COG had more followers than the opposing party. Now, they're in power. And they have an army to back them up –"

"Which you can be sure is going to be increased in size with the demons calling the shots," Rufus added coldly. "Six weeks ago, we were down in Omaha. They got a party there too, not so big … yet … but they had a curfew on that town and Tatiana and Mikhail were already packing, looking to go north. Most of the smaller cities are walled now, since that outbreak. Wouldn't take much to hold the entire citizenry in them, for their own good, a'course."

Ellen looked around the room. She'd known almost all of the people here since she'd been a girl. She'd never seen their faces like this, pale with tightly-held down fear as the possible scenarios kept getting larger, rippling outward.

"We have to tell the Keeper," she said, her words dropping into a moment of silence and every hunter turning to look at her.

"No," Bobby grated. "Not until we got no other choices left."

"She'll know, hon," Bill said, glancing at Bobby dryly. "And Bobby's right, we have to do whatever we can first, before we ask for help."

"Still got all the traps," Moses said tersely. "Key of Solomon, the Dead Sea traps."

"Two'll get in and out easier than more," Abe said, nodding. "See if we can trap and get rid of them in vic's homes." He looked at Gil. "Gonna need some help with that, decoys and such to get in and out and something that'll speed up the exorcisms."

Gillette nodded eagerly. "I was just researching that –"

"Good, we'll be at your place tomorrow morning, Gil, to hear all about it," Abely cut him off, smiling at him to take the sting out. "John and I can hit Lincoln; Bobby and Moses'll take Des Moines and get some of the folks from Peggie's to give you a hand?" He lifted a brow at Bobby who nodded reluctantly. "Rufus and Abe take Omaha. Bill and Lorena, Kansas City." He looked around expectantly, waiting for any signs of dissent. There were none.

"It's a plan," Bill said, running his hand through his hair.

"Yeah, real excited to be a part of it," Rufus muttered under his breath. Abe shot him a look and he shrugged, getting to his feet. "We goin' be up at the crack of dawn, I'm hitting the hay now."

The hunters got up from their seats, and John stood stiffly, moving to stand beside Abely and Bill and looking at Ellen. "Sounds like I'll be heading out again, you sure it's alright to leave the boys here with you, Ellen?"

She smiled at him, a deep warmth lighting her sherry-coloured eyes. "They're no trouble, John," she told him. "I'm happy for them to stay a bit longer."

* * *

Dean heard the front door close and rolled from his bed to his feet, reaching out to the nightstand for Caleb's enhancers and settling them on his face as he crossed the dark attic and tip-toed down the stairs.

The upper hallway was dark, a faint light from the stairwell left on by Abigail when she went to bed. He moved soundlessly over the plush rugs that lined the hall and shifted to the wall side as he crept down the first flight of stairs.

"How early do you want be at Gil's?" he heard his father ask.

"Bobby'll be itchin' to be on the road in the mornin'," Moses answered, his voice little more than a deep rumble. "Get to Gil's at dawn, leave as soon as we can after, I guess."

"I'll have to get the boys to Ellen's before I go," John said as the two men moved down the downstairs to Moses' study.

"You and Abely'll have time to let 'em have their breakfast before you take them over and head out."

Dean couldn't hear his father's response, but he'd heard enough. He retraced his steps along the hall and slid the enhancers back over his nose as he climbed the narrow stair to the attic and returned to his bed.

"Whaddya doin', Dean?" Caleb rolled over and asked sleepily.

"Not going tomorrow," Dean whispered back, feeling his stomach tense at the realisation that his father was going somewhere, somewhere else without them. "We can get down to Max's early."

"Kay," Caleb mumbled his agreement and rolled back over.

Dean felt a shiver of something between fear and anticipation ripple through him. Caleb had said that the tattooing was painful. That wouldn't matter if he could protect his brother and father when it counted, he thought. He wondered how much an iron talisman would cost. He had a feeling his father wouldn't say much if he got a tattoo but he'd kick up some if he got Sammy done as well.

* * *

_**June 27, 1988**_

"There you are!" Abigail cried out as she saw the boys jump back over the stone wall from the kitchen window. Dean looked up and saw her face, the expression an exasperated scowl and he elbowed Caleb who'd dropped into a skulking crouch.

"Forget it, she's seen us," he told the older boy, hurrying in a straight line through the dew-soaked long grass toward the back door.

"Dammit." Caleb lengthened his stride to catch up, arriving at the stone steps together.

"Your dad said to make sure you and Sammy had your breakfast before he got back," Abigail said crossly as they entered through the half-glass door between the mud room and kitchen. "Sammy's had his an hour ago, and you two choose this morning to lark off and disappear?"

"Sorry, Abigail," Caleb said contritely. "We were … uh …"

"It was my fault, Mrs Karnak. I asked Caleb if we could look for night jessamine," Dean said, not looking at Caleb as he dropped into the chair at the big pine table. Abigail set the chafing dishes in front of them and he picked up his fork. "Supposed to be some in the woods behind Mockingbird Lane, and I wanted to see it before we went – Mr Craven's been teaching us about it for herbology."

"Well," Abigail said, a little mollified by the explanation. "Your daddy's going out with Abely today, down to Lincoln to take care of some business, so he's going to take you back up to Ellen's 'til he gets back."

"Oh." Caleb said, his face screwing up as Dean's toe found his shin under the table. "That's, uh, sudden, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know, dear," she said comfortably, wiping her hands as she turned back to the table. "Eat up, they'll be back soon."

Dean schooled his features to blankness as he leaned forward to reach for the eggs and the dressing over his chest pulled. He drew in a slow breath and looked at Caleb. The older boy pushed the dish of scrambled eggs toward him and he spooned out a heap onto his plate with a small nod of thanks.

* * *

John lifted a brow as Abely knocked on the roadhouse door and Ellen lifted the curtain to look at them before she opened it.

"What's going on?" he asked as they walked in, Dean and Sammy following silently behind them.

"Hunter business means we'll stay closed until you've gone," Ellen said briskly, gesturing to the side of the room where the smaller tables had been arranged to make two long ones. "Whatever extra gear you need should be on those."

She glanced over her shoulder at the boys. "Dean, take Sammy to the office, please. Jo's in there with Frances and Morgan."

He nodded and grabbed his brother's hand, weaving them both through the silent and stony-faced hunters to the back hallway.

John watched them go, hoping he was doing the right thing. He'd hardly seen them in the last sixteen days.

"John," Abely said, dragging his attention back to what they were doing. "You'll need holy water, the consecrated shells, salt; six of those bags, yeah–" the older hunter confirmed with a sharp nod as John's hand reached for a pile of leather bags marked with sigils. "–those."

Looking over the long table, John began to gather the necessary tools for demon hunting, putting the smaller items the pouch hanging from his belt, the large ones into the black leather bag that held the rest of his weapons.

"Who's the Keeper?" he asked Abely in a low voice as they moved along the table.

Abely lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. "Not the time or place, when we're on the road, I'll tell you what I know about it."

"Is it a secret?" John glanced around them, the hunters moving along the table on the other side showing no interest in their conversation.

"Not really," Abely said, his expression a little pained. "Just not – it's order business."

The order that Emerson belonged to, John thought, belatedly realising he didn't much about that either. Jim had told him a little but not the whole story. He wondered if Abely would fill in the great, gaping holes on the drive south.

"Did Jim learn anything more about –"

The gunshot and the crash of the door falling inwards into the room had every hunter swinging around, weapons raised as they stared at the man who stumbled disjointedly through the opening.

John's eyes narrowed. It was Lucius, he thought, recognising the portly baker when his head turned toward them, brown eyes bright in the red-cheeked, round face. But somehow, it wasn't.

The baker walked in jerks and fits, as if he'd forgotten how to use his arms and legs, swinging around slightly from side to side with each stride and staggering over the debris of the broken door, glass and timber crunching under his soft-soled boots, leaving a trail of blood behind him as the shards cut through into his feet.

"Ha! Ha ha! Hunters!" Lucius shouted in a reedy, tenor voice. "Waiter! There's a hunter in my soup!"

"He's possessed," Bill said flatly from beside the bar, lifting the shotgun in his hands as Lucius' head turned grotesquely a hundred and eighty degrees to look at him. In the silence of the room the cracking of the spine was clear and loud.

"Gil? You ready?" Abely said, flicking a glance to his right at the tall man.

"We need a mirror," Gillette replied quietly. "A big one."

"No, you don't!" the demon cried and Lucius' face stretched out impossibly, his jaw dislocating and falling onto his chest, his skin rippling and becoming shiny and darker.

"Get it into the trap!" Bill shouted, firing the shotgun from his hip, the iron pellets hitting Lucius' chest in a tight cluster.

Sammy and Jo appeared in the open door that led to the offices and stopped, staring at the man in front of him as he turned to look at them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

_**June 27, 1988. Harvelle's Roadhouse, Wayne, Nebraska**_

Dean sat slumped in the chair, barely hearing the argument in front of him between his little brother and Morgan, Lorena's six-year old son. His chest was throbbing a little, the skin and muscle aching around the needle marks and the last place he wanted to be was sitting here, babysitting a bunch of snot-nosed kids while Abely and his father were preparing for something big. He needed to know what was going on.

The crash, completely unexpected and shockingly loud, stopped the argument, and Dean's thoughts, cold. His heart stopped as well when Sammy and Jo shot out of the room before he could even get out of the chair, Frances and Morgan trailing them and getting in his way as the soles of his boots skidded on the polished boards. The thunder of a shotgun in the direction his brother was going lent wings to his heels.

"Sammy! Don't!"

He accelerated as he heard Sammy's high-pitched wavering scream ahead.

"CHILDREN!" A voice bellowed, rich and almost pulsing with delight.

Dean registered three things as he came around the corner of the hall to the doorway. Sammy and Jo, theirs arms wrapped around each other and clutching each other tightly, were fully taking up the open door to the main saloon. His father, Abely and Rufus, faces drawn and filled with the tension of imminent action, beyond them. And Wayne's baker, Lucius Thoroughgood, reaching out for his little brother and Ellen's daughter with impossibly long arms, his normally-round face stretching and stretching and the eyes black, jet-black, from corner to corner. He couldn't slow down, couldn't stop and in desperation, he jumped.

Sammy shrieked at the shadow passing over him and dropped to the floor, dragging the little girl with him. Dean landed in front of them and Lucius' fingers closed around his throat.

The demon screeched and let go of the boy, his hand flying up and back.

John faltered as he saw blood burst in a spray from Lucius' mouth. He clenched his jaw and dove at the man's legs, hitting the knees and wrapping his arms around them, Abely slamming into the man's chest and Rufus, his arm hooked around the neck, dropping onto his shoulders when the man hit the floor.

In the doorway to the back hall, Dean crouched in front of the children, the new symbol inked over one side of his chest burning fiercely and bringing tears to his eyes. He had no idea of what'd happened, what was happening. He could still feel the imprint of fingers on his neck, though they'd let go as soon as they'd touched him, still hear the echoes of the shrill squeal that had drilled into his ears as he'd fallen back, and in front of him, the hunters were fighting the baker, the man writhing and elongating under them, his shape and form and face changing, after-images of monstrosity and human left in his mind's eye as he stared at them. He inched backwards, feeling Jo's small hands plucking at his shoulder as Sammy pressed hard against his back.

John felt a searingly bright pain across his back a fraction of a second later, and if his arms hadn't been trapped under the baker's legs, he'd've rolled away instantly. As it was, he couldn't move, couldn't get away from the claws that dug deeper into him, scraping over his shoulder blade and ribs.

Bill shouted something incomprehensible and the demon froze, Abely rolling over, dragging the demon's fingers from John's back as Lucius began to convulse beneath them.

"Don't look!" Rufus roared at them and John turned his head involuntarily, catching a glimpse of Lorena and Bill standing at Lucius' head, something big, covered in a black cloth, between them before Abely's hand shoved his head down and the sight was cut off.

Lucius growled and thrashed against them, blood mixed with spittle spraying over the floor as the noises, brute and primal and non-human, were forced through the baker's larynx. John struggled against the monstrous strength in the man, the pain in his back knifing through him as he tightened his grip on the heaving legs, his teeth clicking together painfully as a knee snapped up and hit him under the chin.

"_Exorcizamus spiritus omnis adversarii infernalis, incursion omnis, legio omnis, congregation omnis, et secta diabolica nefas_ _Et ad speculum in puteum inferni ianua!_" Gil's voice was almost unrecognisable as he intoned the Latin, filling the room, booming from the walls and rattling the glasses on the shelves behind the bar. "Now, Bill!"

From the hall, Dean saw everything stop. Lucius stared at the large, square object between Bill and Lorena and a thick, charcoal smoke poured from his mouth, his nose and eyes, arrowing helplessly into the square with a piercing shriek that shattered every glass and bottle and window-pane in the saloon.

As Bill and Lorena struggled with the frame they held, Dean caught a glimpse of a distorted and horrifying face in the mirror, shiny and blackened and deranged, bony fingers tipped by long claws pressed against the glass from the inside, then Gil swung a black cloth over it and the three hunters tossed the mirror in a high arc through the broken front door. It splintered into a million pieces as it hit the gravelled yard outside and silence fell over the room.

His tattoo stopped burning and he slumped forward, turning on one knee as he heard the sobbing of his brother and the little girl behind him, putting his arms around them and pulling them close. He swallowed his own shocked reactions and bowed his head over them.

John pushed Lucius' unmoving legs off his arm and hissed with pain as the incautious movement pulled at wounds in his back and his vision swam, misty grey clouds gathering at the edges.

"Don't move, John," Abely said beside him, and he froze obediently, feeling the hunter's hands lift away the shredded remains of his coat. "Pretty deep."

"Help him up, on the chair," Lorena said, lifting a fallen chair upright and gesturing impatiently at it. "I'll have to stitch that."

"Good job, Gil," Rufus said to the inventor, who blinked as he turned to look at the hunter. "Nice and fast too."

"It could be streamlined," Gil said, frowning as he replayed the last few minutes back in his head. Ellen laughed, a harsh bray of shock and relief as she dropped to the floor behind Dean, the voluminous skirts of her dress puddling around her, her arms enclosing the three children kneeling there.

* * *

_**June 28, 1988**_

"Go back to Blue Earth," Abely said firmly, looking at John over the rim of the cup of coffee. "Take care of the boys and Millie, and give those cuts a chance to heal up."

"You going to tackle Lincoln solo?" John said, his face hardening, his inadvertent tension sending a stab of pain from his back through his arm. His _right_ arm. _Naturally_.

"No," Abely said, leaning back in the chair and smiling at Ellen as she came to refill his cup. "Darby got in this morning. He's already volunteered."

He leaned forward as Ellen sat down, and John's gaze flicked irritably between them.

"John, that thing got into Lucius somehow. The house, it's not protected against demons, we've never needed to before. Take Bobby's notes and make sure that Jim knows the whole damned village has to be iron-ringed and traps on every door and window there. We can't afford to let this happen again."

It wasn't a smokescreen, John knew, something to keep him from feeling useless with his injuries. The threat was real, real enough to have touched his boy. The demon had left prints there, lightly charred onto Dean's skin.

"Alright." His breath gusted out. "Yeah, alright. You're right," he agreed quietly.

Every hunter and most of the civilians had spent the entire day and the best part of the night painting and carving wards and traps into and onto the buildings in the town. The bakery had been burned to the ground on Gil's instructions, in case the demon had left a mark there, Bill had explained to them. Something to draw itself or others like it back to this place.

Too much fucking lore he didn't know about, he thought bitterly as he watched Abely finish his coffee and get up.

"You look after them all, John," the hunter said, picking up the battered, soft leather case. "I'll be home in a week or so."

"Make sure of it." John looked up at him, and felt Ellen's fingers tighten over his own as Abely nodded and left.

"He _is_ right, John," she said. "Nothing is random in this life, you know that now. Nothing is coincidence and that demon came straight to us, it knew us."

Her words sent a deeper chill through him. "Ellen, what did it want with the children?"

She drew in a deep breath and he saw the memory of those long, reaching arms in the shadows behind her eyes. "I don't know," she said, pushing aside the memory with a visible effort. "Bill has studied the lore his whole life, practically. He thought it was just a bunch of myths, interesting enough, but not with a bearing on what we do."

Glancing across the room at her husband, she shrugged slightly. "But for all that study, he doesn't know much about them. The myth says that the devil twisted the first human soul sent to the pit into a demon, through centuries of torture, just to amuse himself." She turned back to the man sitting next to her. "I don't know why it wanted the kids. I don't know what it wanted here. Bill doesn't either."

"Gil said that Emerson has been studying the legends …" John ventured, not certain what he was asking.

"Yeah, Emerson's part of the order," she said, nodding slightly. "If anyone's found out anything about the hellspawn, it'll be him and Mina."

John frowned, realising he wanted to ask her about that, but another question rose in his mind instead. "Ellen, you said the hunters would have to tell the keeper – what is the keeper?"

She made a face, half-wry, half-rueful and shook her head. "That's more legend, John, real enough–" she told him, her voice dropping a little. "–but fantastical, all the same."

"Fantastical in what way?" John asked, wondering acerbically if there could be anything more fantastical than their lives already were.

"The Keeper is a hunter, usually. Someone chosen, although no one really knows much about that–" she said, hesitating a moment as she realised that wasn't entirely true. "Emerson might, though. He's been through most of the histories. In any case, the Keeper is someone who can see all the planes, ours, Hell's, Heaven's, even the dimensions that are really just borderlands between them. The Keeper's supposed to maintain the balance, make sure that nothing gets the upper hand, one side or another."

"Kind of fell down there, didn't he?"

"She, this time."

"This time?" John's brows rose quizzically.

"The Keeper's a woman," Ellen confirmed, with a vague gesture to the west. "Each Keeper lives a long time. When they die, a new Keeper is chosen."

"How old is the current one?"

"I don't know, not for sure," she said. "More than three hundred years old, I think. I don't know what's happened to her," she added, a crease appearing between her brows as she looked down at the table. "You're right, she should have warned us, at the very first breach."

"Maybe something stopped her."

Her eyes were a little distant as she answered. "Maybe."

"Why didn't Bobby want her to get involved?" John asked, wondering what she was thinking. He wasn't sure if he should ask.

"Involving the Keeper is sometimes not a great thing," she said, her attention snapping back to him. "They tend to act in the long-term interests of the world, not really considering the lives that might be cut down in the meantime."

John nodded. He could see how that wouldn't go down too well with most of the hunters he'd met. Ellen looked over at Bill again, and he turned as well, seeing the tall, blond hunter finishing up his conversation with Lorena.

"They're going," she said, looking back at him and getting to her feet. He rose with her automatically. "Get home and get everything protected, John. Talk to Emerson and Mina, they can fill in a whole lot more gaps than I can."

"Yeah."

She leaned toward and he hugged her awkwardly, touched by the firm kiss she planted on his cheek.

"You take care of those boys and yourself," she added over her shoulder, releasing him and turning away.

* * *

_**June 30, 1988. IA-60 N, Iowa**_

In the backseat of the black car, Sammy squirmed closer to his brother, eyes squeezed shut, his head resting on Dean's leg. Dean looked down at his brother with a mixture of irritation and concern. Sammy'd had nightmares for the last two nights, waking screaming or crying, settling again only when he was close to his big brother. It meant he didn't get a lot of sleep as the little boy tossed and turned restlessly beside him for the remainder of the night.

He'd had his own nightmares. Flickering glimpses of the impossibly contorted demon, chasing him through endlessly long corridors. His own screams were tightly locked behind his teeth when he woke, shaking and damp with sweat, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was gonna explode through his ribs.

The sense memories of the aftermath, when Ellen had knelt behind him and hugged all three children close, were still strong. _Thank you_, she'd whispered against his ear, her perfume filling his nose and lingering in his hair and clothes, and the feel of her lips, pressed against the point of his jaw. He didn't know what she'd thanked him for, he hadn't done anything, hadn't saved anyone. Just acted on instinct, putting himself between Lucius and the little kids. It wasn't like it would've taken the demon any time to kill him if the hunters hadn't been there and jumped the possessed man.

His father was worried. He could smell that worry as they drove north and west, filling the car with the scent of bitter, sour sweat. He could hear it in the steady thrum of the tyres over the cracking asphalt. He could see it in the white gleam of bone under the skin as his father's hands tightened on the wheel with every derelict and ruined town they sped through. He wondered uneasily if his father had bad dreams as well.

Staring out through the window at the scenery flashing by, he realised that he wanted to be back in the tall house, wanted to see the unkempt garden, to eat Millie's thick-crusted apple and raspberry pie, warm and gooey from the oven, smothered in cream, feel her arms close around him. Wanted to sleep in his own room and wake up in it. He even wanted to see Stan and Ricky again, that recognition bringing a very soft snort of his own lameness and a lightening of the fear that was still churning, down below the surface.

The roadhouse had been interesting, he thought, and he'd liked it there, liked the other kids, the hunters, the easy acceptance of his family. But he'd felt on edge there, too, unable to escape an incremental sense of foreboding that had kept him wary and keyed up, even when he'd been goofing around with Caleb and the others.

He didn't remember much of the attack now. The thing that had crawled into the car and grabbed him and tried to drag him out. He remembered seeing the men, hearing the gunfire. He remembered the look in his father's eyes. It'd been the same, that look. The same as when he'd pushed his infant brother into his arms and told him to run, to keep his brother safe, to not look back as smoke billowed through the nursery's doorway.

"You okay?" his father asked, and he looked up, seeing the dark-green eyes in the mirror, watching him.

"Yeah."

He wasn't okay. But he would make himself okay, he thought, nodding to his father as he saw him accept that response. A part of him, a small, already-grown-up part of him, recognised suddenly that his father wouldn't, couldn't, press him any more, would only accept what he told him. John Winchester needed him to be strong, to not be a kid anymore. He felt a second's tearing pain at that knowledge, as if he'd lost something precious, something irretrievable. Then it was gone and he straightened a little against the seat, looking down and pulling the blanket higher over Sammy's shoulder, tucking it in under his brother's chin. Sammy sighed and drifted deeper.

* * *

_**July 1, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

The house was lit, the downstairs rooms glowing gold in the night as the black car bumped along the drive and pulled up in front of the porch steps. John let the engine die and leaned back against the seat, his eyes closing in relief.

"Dad?"

John turned around and looked over the seat back to his son. Dean's ability to sleep through anything had gone, he realised, seeing the uncertainty in the boy's eyes.

"It's okay, we're home," he said quietly, looking down at his younger son, still curled up against the older boy. "Sammy still out?"

"Yeah, I can carry him in," Dean said, looking down at his brother. "You should get Millie to look at the dressings."

John blinked at the suggestion, coming from his nine-year old son. "I should, but I can manage a few more yards yet," he said gently. "I'll take Sammy if you can bring in the gear bags."

He thought for a brief moment he was going to get an argument, but Dean nodded, easing his brother's head from his leg and opening the rear door. "I need the keys."

John pulled them from the ignition and handed them over the back of the seat, then turned to open his door, his shoulder and back throbbing as he got out and tried to stretch the kinks and stiffness from his muscles.

Carrying Sammy up the steps and in through the door Dean held open, he realised that he probably should've taken up Dean's offer. The kid was heavy now, growing fast. He shifted the weight further to the left, and headed for the stairs.

Millie came along the hall from the kitchen as Dean set the gear bags down in the hall and closed the front door, shooting the bolts home and wondering if he could find a rat or something to draw the protection across the door. He turned around and was enveloped in a cloud of light perfume, soft, golden curls, crushed velvet against his cheek as she hugged him tightly.

"Where's your dad? And Abely?" she asked, finally letting him go and stepping back.

"Abely's gone on another hunt," he said carefully. "Dad's taken Sammy upstairs, he should be down in a minute."

"You eaten?" Millie asked, nodding at his answers and turning away without waiting for his response. "There's chicken, and ham –"

Dean hesitated for a moment, looking up the staircase for his father, then followed her down to the kitchen, his stomach growling in anticipation as he caught the wafting scents of roast bird, fresh bread and apple pie.

* * *

Upstairs, John laid Sammy on the bed, unlacing his boots and pulling them off, the child's only response a slight frown at the coolness of the coverlet after the warmth of the car. He pulled back the covers and drew them over the little boy, crouching beside the bed to push the thick fringe back from Sammy's face.

Dean's childhood had mostly gone, he thought, fingers stroking through his youngest's soft hair. It hadn't been deliberate, but it'd been inevitable. The boy had always had an uncanny ability to see through people, see through to the heart of a problem, a feeling. Over the last four years, he'd seen Dean withdraw, a little more each day, keeping his thoughts and feelings more private, learning to hide them behind an expressionless face and shuttered eyes, taking on the business of learning to be a hunter so seriously he wondered how much of the little boy he'd once taught to ride a bicycle and throw a ball would be left when he reached manhood.

He wanted to change that, wanted it to be different, to place no other burdens on his son, but he acknowledged bleakly, even if he could, even if there was some way to keep this all away from the boy, he wouldn't. Not now. The fact was that he had begun to rely on Dean's sense of responsibility, on his commitment to do the best he could, and there was no other person he could trust as fully with the protection of Sammy.

Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss against the child's forehead and straightened up painfully. From here, the battleground had changed. He didn't know to what extent, not yet, but he couldn't risk not taking every single precaution he had at his disposal. Tomorrow, they would protect the house and go and see Jim. Then they would protect the village. And then, he thought tiredly, he would spend some time with Emerson and Mina and try and find all the missing pieces he needed to know.

* * *

The kitchen windows were open, a warm breeze, laden with the smells of honeysuckle and night jasmine, and the deep rich scent of the garden flowed through them, brushing over John's bare skin as he leaned forward on his elbows over the table. His breath hissed in as Millie peeled back the dressings.

Behind him, Millie's brows drew together tightly as she looked at the long, deep cuts and under them, four puncture wounds, all reddened and swollen. There was no infection, she decided, dipping a clean linen into the warm salted water in the bowl beside her, just aggravation of movement. Sponging the area clean, she checked the stitches. They were neat, at least, she thought with a sniff. Lorena's work, not Ellen's.

She turned back to the table and opened a jar, scooping out a generous amount on her fingertips and smoothing the green cream over the wounds slowly.

John flinched a little at the coolness of the cream, then relaxed as the analgesic properties began to numb the skin. "What's that?"

"Family recipe," she said, smiling a little. She covered the injuries thoroughly and laid fine layers of open-weave cloth over them, then thicker dressings. "Lift your arm."

He lifted his right arm gingerly, wincing a little as the elbow rose to shoulder level.

Seeing the expression, Millie shook her head. "Bruising will get better in a few days," she told him as she wound the clean bandage over the dressings and around his chest, over the shoulder and around his ribs again.

She was standing close to him, and he shivered slightly at the light touch of her fingers over his skin, abruptly aware of the delicate fragrance she wore, a little stronger in the warmth of the room, and of the brush of her hair against his neck when she leaned forward to pass the end of the bandage around him. He closed his eyes in an attempt to shut down the fluttering twists of his nerves. It was _Millie_, for god's sake. _Abely's_ Millie.

"John."

"Yeah."

"All done," she said, and he opened his eyes, watching her move away, emptying the bowl into the sink. Looking down, he saw the bandage, wrapped firmly over the dressings and tied off neatly.

"Thanks."

She turned around, smiling as she untied the apron she wore, and he looked away, away from the way the lamp light highlighted her loosely-piled up mass of gold and wheaten and platinum curls, from the warmth and acceptance in the indigo eyes, from the curve of her mouth, the full lips a shade of rose he'd never noticed before.

Dropping his gaze to the table top, he closed his eyes again, fervidly wishing that he hadn't noticed any of those things. A soft hiss and slur and rustle of the hem of her dress, brushing over the floor as she moved, then he felt her hands, warm and light on his shoulders.

"Millie."

"Ssssh," she said, fingers and heels of her hands pressing against the tight muscles, working them, loosening them expertly. He clamped his mouth shut as they slipped up the back of his neck and into his hair, making small circles over the back of his skull, the tension bleeding out with the gentle movements and his pulse fluttering as a feeling of languid heat coiled slowly through him.

His breath shuddered out of him when she lifted her hands and he heard her move back. Half-turning in the chair, he could see the flush in her skin, blotchy pink under the pale freckles.

"You look tired," she said, not quite looking at him and he nodded, getting up from the chair and turning for the door.

"Beat to hell," he agreed, his voice rough, his gaze cutting past her. "I'll say goodnight."

He headed for the door before she could answer, his pulse loud in his ears. He'd lived here for four years, four years of not seeing her, not noticing how she looked, or smelled, or sounded. He didn't have the faintest idea of why he'd noticed all those things tonight.

_Just being taken care of_, he told himself as he climbed fast up the staircase, wheeling at the top landing and striding along the hallway to his bedroom. _That's all, just_ … he sighed and gave up on that weak justification. Millie had doctored any number of injuries in the last four years and he'd never felt that flutter of desire with the touch of her hands on him.

_Goddammit, Abely, get your ass back here_, he thought angrily, closing his door behind him and pulling off his boots.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

_**July 2, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Dean sat in his usual seat at the dining table, at the right-hand of his father, opposite Sammy. He took the bowl of mashed potato from Millie, spooning a heap onto his plate, the creamy mound glinting with primrose curls of butter. Passing the bowl to his father, he risked another quick look at Millie and the faint blush of pink that tinted her cheekbones.

Something had changed, he thought, his gaze flicking between the two adults as he ate. He didn't know what, exactly, only that there was a tension in the room between them that hadn't been there before and neither would meet the eyes of the other, although they talked as much as they ever had.

"The house is completely protected," his father was saying, ladling out two deep spoonfuls of the potato onto his plate and serving another one onto his youngest son's. "Emerson had everything we needed, and they've done Jim's place and the church as well."

"That's good to hear," Millie said, looking down as she cut the thin slices of meat on her plate into tiny pieces.

On the other side of the table, Sammy was pushing the beans and broccoli to one side and surreptitiously hiding them under the mash, focussed on his food and, Dean thought, apparently not having the faintest idea that their father, and the woman they both considered to be almost a mother, were ill-at-ease in the same room.

The clink of cutlery on the china, the soft chimes of the crystal glasses, his brother's occasional slurping of his milk filled the silence between the bursts of stilted conversation in a way he hadn't heard before. Everything sounded much louder, he thought, than it really was.

"Oh, I forgot to mention," Millie said, looking up at John and then back down to her glass as she picked it up. "Francis came by and said that the railway lines behind the old station could be used for the barrier."

Dean looked at his father. He saw him nod thoughtfully, scooping peas and carrots onto his fork slowly and adding the mash on top.

"That's good, we'll get started on that tomorrow," he said, his gaze rising as he lifted the loaded fork. Dean glanced at Millie, seeing her look down again and his gaze cut back to his father, who'd paused with the fork poised halfway between the plate and his mouth and was staring at her, his eyes dark.

"Can we, uh, help with that?" Dean asked, not liking the way his father was looking at Millie.

John started and looked at his fork, nodding as he took the mouthful.

"Yeah, we'll need everyone working on that," he said through the food.

Against the soft white linen collar of his shirt, Dean saw a flush of colour rising up his neck. The sight brought a scowl. He'd never seen his father uncomfortable or worse, embarrassed. The thought was impossible to entertain in relation to either the hard-edged Marine he knew his father had once been, or to the stern but fair man he was used to.

"Is there something wrong with your food, Dean?" Millie asked him, looking at him worriedly.

Smoothing out the expression, Dean shook his head. "No, it's good. I just, um, was thinking about something else."

"Didn't look like a happy thought, whatever it was," she said, one brow lifting in question.

"Nothing important," he said, hurriedly piling another load onto his fork and shoving it into his mouth.

* * *

_**July 3, 1988.**_

The boundaries of the village were a little under a mile each side, and the railway ran through the centre. John looked at the map spread over the table and nodded to Francis.

"We lay full track and join it to the existing one, and they won't be able to cross the double lines."

"Helluva lot of labour, John," Huxton said, scratching the back of his head as he calculated the lengths needed. "This'll take weeks."

"Better than being overrun and everyone dying, right?"

"Right," the other man allowed reluctantly. "Where do you want to start?"

* * *

_**July 8, 1988.**_

Setting the thick iron spikes into the holes of the track, Dean stepped back out of the way, wiping his hand over his face as sweat stung his eyes. The days had been fine and clear, but getting warmer and warmer, and the old-timers were all talking about thunderstorms soon.

Sammy and Darien staggered up to him, holding a bucket of water between them.

"Dean! You wanna drink?" his little brother called out to him and he nodded, dropping the heavy bag from his shoulder, dipping the ladle into the water and tipping it over his head first, then gulping down the second dipper full.

"You're wasting it!" Sammy said in disgust, looking at his dripping brother.

"Not wasted," Dean contradicted mildly, running both hands over his face and back through his hair. It'd cooled him off very nicely. His hand flashed out to grab his brother's arm as the boys headed toward the iron rails.

"Stay clear while they're swinging the mauls," he cautioned Sam, gesturing toward the men working on the track. "Then ask."

They were almost three-quarters of the way around the loosely oval line of tracks surrounding the village now, he calculated, heaving the bag of big, iron spikes back onto his shoulder and walking further up the laid but not yet fastened lines. He could see his father, a hundred yards away, swinging the maul into the air and bringing it down on the head of a spike. He hadn't been able to lift the mauls the first day, but he'd healed quickly with Millie's cream, and the stitches had been removed two days ago, leaving thickened red lines down the shoulder blade and puckered circles under the ribs, easily visible against his father's tanned skin.

The tension in the house had not diminished. If anything, he thought caustically, it'd increased and mealtimes were stiff and formal now, without the laughter and joking around he'd missed so much in Wayne. He couldn't work out exactly what was wrong. His father was, if anything, more courteous and thoughtful of Millie than he'd ever been. And Millie was the same, making favourite meals and having icy-cold pitchers of ale and lemonade waiting for them when they got back to the house in the pale, purpling dusk. But both were as nervous as long-tailed cats in a roomful of rocking chairs and neither would look at the other directly, only giving oblique looks when they thought the other wasn't looking back.

It was inexplicable and he wanted things to go back to the way they were, without the tension and the looks and the not-looking and the weird, disjointed conversations.

* * *

_**July 10, 1988.**_

John stretched out, feeling the ache of the wounds, but no longer a stabbing pain when he inadvertently used the muscles. The simple physical labour of laying the iron had been good for them, he thought, relaxing back into the chair.

Sunlight dappled his legs as he extended them in front of the chair, the garden bright in front of him, but the stifling heat of the breeze-less day eased in the shade of the thick grape vines that covered the stone-paved gazebo. The hum of the insects in the greenery was loud and soporific and his lids closed slowly, the warmth and peace lulling him into sleep.

The dreams, filled with vivid images and tangled emotions and piercing sensation infused his sleep at all hours, catching at him and lodging in his thoughts even when he was awake. Only one other person had had this effect on him, and sometimes it was her face he saw, sometimes Millie's.

* * *

"John?"

He blinked, struggling back to consciousness and breathing in the light fragrance that followed him down into his dreams, looking up into a pair of indigo-blue eyes.

"I thought …" she said uncertainly, her gaze slipping to one side as she made a small vague gesture. "You were sleeping very deeply."

_Dreaming of you_, the words hovered in his mouth but he kept them there. She was wearing a white lawn dress, without the usual layers of petticoats and skirts, just an equally thin patterned muslin overskirt, and he could see a fine gleam of perspiration on her throat and chest. A wide-mouthed basket sat on the floor beside her, filled with cut flowers, and her hair was covered by a broad-brimmed straw hat.

He could see her pulse, beating fast against the thin skin of her neck. He could feel his own, thundering loudly in his ears. She sat on the edge of the chair as he tried to straighten up.

"I think –"

"Don't keep running away from me," she whispered, leaning closer to him, one hand resting against the fine linen shirt over his chest. "You can't keep lying and telling yourself we don't both want the same thing."

He dropped his gaze, looking at the small, pale floral patterns on her skirt. He didn't know how long he was going to be able to stand how close she was. "That doesn't matter, what I want … not even what you want," he said, his voice thick. "You belong to Abely, Millie, and he's my friend."

"I belong _with_ Abely, John, there's a big difference between the two things," she corrected him. "And he knows that this, this feeling, is between us. Why do you think he told you to take care of us?"

"That's not what he meant!"

She smiled suddenly. "You don't know him very well. That _is_ what he meant."

He looked up at her, wanting to believe it, unable to, unwilling to, his memories of the tall, broad-shouldered soldier at odds with what was she was saying. _There are some that have questioned her loyalty, but I don't. Not ever_. What did that mean if not that she was his, he wondered?

"When he's here, he and I are together, John. That's the deal. I don't ask what he does when he's not. And he believes he doesn't have the right to expect what he's not prepared to give," she explained quietly. "When he's not here … I'd rather be with you than anyone else."

He looked away, scowling. "Anyone else? Is that what happened between Abely and Belthorpe? You can't wait for him?"

"Of course I can, and I have," she said, the smile reappearing. "And Oran didn't understand what I'd offered, he thought he was cutting Abely out. He should've hated me, for leaving him, he hated Abely instead." She pulled off the straw hat, unpinning her hair and letting it fall across her shoulders. "Why do you want to pretend when you don't have to?"

"If I – when I – I wouldn't want to share you, Millie," he said, looking back at her in frustration. "I don't think I could."

"You love Abely." Her gaze held his steadily. "You'd die for him."

"Of course, what's that got to –"

"I love him too," she cut him off, her fingers touching his lips lightly. "You're not sharing me, John, we're sharing him."

* * *

"Where are you going?"

Dean shook his head, scowling at his brother. "Away from you."

"Why?" Sammy persisted, his bear held tightly in one hand. He followed Dean as his brother stalked through the house, looking for his father.

They'd finished the lines yesterday, and Dean wanted to get out, be on his own for a while, but the rule was strict, someone had to know where you were going, even here.

_Because I'm sick of the tension in the house_, he thought angrily in response to his brother's question, _sick of feeling as if everything is changing and I don't know what's coming for us_. He stopped abruptly, dragging in a deep breath and turning around to face his little brother, his anger dissolving in the face of Sammy's wide-eyed incomprehension.

"I'm trying to find Dad, to let him know that I'm going down to the woods," he said, more patiently. "Have you seen him?"

Sammy shook his head. "Not since breakfast. Can I come with you to the woods?"

Dean sighed inwardly. "No, I'm just going to look for something, and I need to be quick. I won't be long."

It was a lie, but a white one, he thought. He just wanted to have some time to think on his own, without the distractions and responsibility of his little brother or the press of the feelings that were thick in the house between his father and Millie.

"I can help you look?"

"Not today, Sammy," he said, turning back to the French doors of the living room that led out into the garden. Where the hell was he?

"Dean, I want to come with you, it's boring here by myself," Sammy's voice rose as he tried a different tactic and Dean lengthened his stride, hearing the little boy stumble as he tried to keep up.

"You're not by yourself, Sammy, Dad's here –" _Somewhere_, he thought. "And Millie. Why don't you check the garden and see if you can help her out there?"

"It's too hot."

"It's going to be hot where I'm going," Dean countered, grasping at any excuse that his brother would accept.

"Not in the woods, it'll be cool there."

"No, it won't, it'll be a hot, boring walk down there, and a hotter, boring walk back."

"I don't mind," Sammy pleaded, reaching out to grab the tails of Dean's shirt. "I won't bother you, I promise."

"Sammy," he said, turning sharply as he felt the hand on his clothing. "I need to do this by myself. It's a – a – big boy thing, alright?"

"I'm a big boy," Sammy said, his eyes filling. "You said so, yesterday."

"Yeah," Dean relented slightly. "But not big enough. Just stay here and I'll be back soon okay?"

He stopped on the stone terrace, looking around the garden, listening. It was still and quiet, not even a rustle from the drooping leaves on the trees and shrubs. He'd told Sammy where he was going, he thought mutinously. To the south-east there was a thin line of dark cloud, just visible over the horizon and he was going to run out of time if he wasted another moment looking for his father.

"I don't want to stay here by myself, Dean." Sam looked up him imploringly and he hardened his heart against the plea.

"You're not by yourself," he reminded his brother. "And I'm going to be going too fast for you to keep up."

"I –"

"No."

He pushed the little boy back into the house and closed the door between them, turning fast and running down the steps and through the garden, his blood pounding in his ears suddenly, without reason. He just needed to get away from everyone, and everything, and have some time to himself.

* * *

In the living room, Sammy reached up, able to reach the curving door handle now. He'd wanted to show his father and brother yesterday but they'd been too busy. He pulled down and the lock snicked, the door opening. He could see the movement of the bushes where Dean had gone, knew the path down through the garden and across Uncle Jim's fields behind the church, down along the old railway line and into the woods. Clutching his bear, he ran across the terrace and down the steps, following the trail of crushed grass and bent and snapped twigs that his brother had left behind him.

* * *

He was drowning, he thought incoherently and she was right, he needed this, had needed it for a long time, had kept it out of his thoughts for the last four years, but he needed it and wanted it and he didn't want to stop.

Soft lips on his, silken skin under his hands, warm and alive and so comforting, so different from the women he'd had on the road, who didn't know, didn't care. Millie knew him and loved him, he thought.

He leaned back as her lips trailed down the side of his neck, leaving a trail of molten heat. He could hear his heart, hammering against his ribs, as his fingers plucked impatiently at the silk ribbon ties that drew the bodice of her dress together, desperation rising to touch and smell and taste and see and feel.

Distantly, remotely, in some other part of his mind, he still felt that despite her arguments, what he was doing was wrong, was going to hurt, that he would have to pay for this, but he was far, far beyond those thoughts now. He pulled her closer as the cotton gave way and moaned against the curve of her breast, lips and tongue exploring, a jittery shiver shaking him as he heard her indrawn breath, sharp and harsh, and felt her hands slip down his sides.

Neither heard the mutter of thunder far to the south.

* * *

Dean slowed down when he reached the fields behind the church. The sunlight glittered on the tall, bleached white grass, reflecting back into his face and eyes and he could feel his sweat dripping from his hair and soaking into his shirt. He trudged across the brittle, dry pasture with his head down, eyes screwed almost shut, the crunch and crackle of the grasses under his feet drowning out every other noise.

Jumping over the low stone wall that divided the pasture from the church yard, he cut across the overgrown cemetery and hurried through the lych-gate to the narrow path that led down to the cool oak and beech woods. The path curved into the shade a hundred yards further down and he slowed down again, wiping the sweat from his face and neck, and dawdling along the dark trail as he gradually cooled off, head bowed, his eyes on the soft, leaf-matted path at his feet.

Normally, usually, he was pretty good at figuring out the emotions people held back, kept hidden from public view. He'd watched his father and Millie over the last few days, studied them for a clue as to what was going on but he hadn't been able to see past the polite formality between them to the problem behind it. They hadn't had a fight, he was sure of that. And it wasn't worry about Abely and what he was doing down in Lincoln with the demons. Darby, the hunter who'd gone along as back-up was a good, all-around man, Caleb had told him before they'd left the roadhouse. Both men knew exactly how to handle the situation. Millie and his father might've been worried a little about it, but it wouldn't affect either like this.

Twice he'd caught them, standing close together, talking in low, hushed tones to each other when he'd walked into the room. They'd stopped, drawn apart and his father had invariably made an excuse to leave almost immediately, Millie turning away a moment later and disappearing as well. It was … his face screwed up a little as he thought of another way to look at it. It was … as if they had a secret, something that was too big for them to be able to talk about openly. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he walked slowly along the path, considering that. The question was, what kind of secret?

He couldn't imagine any kind of secret, or anything at all that could derail his father's thoughts in the middle of talking about something, or stop him in the middle of doing something, but he'd seen it happen, several times in the past week. It was more than unsettling, he realised with a shiver. It was something he hadn't known about his father, that capacity for a lack of concentration, a lack of attention. He'd have sworn it could never happen. To lesser men, maybe, but not John Winchester.

Climbing over the deadfalls that blocked the trail down to the river, he wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings and his own noisy progress across the dried and cracked timber covered the small noises in the woods around him.

A long, low rumbling did catch his attention and he looked instinctively south, head lifting as he felt a faint air, cool and fresh, slip over his skin. He hurried down the slope to the riverbank.

* * *

Sammy lifted his bear to his chest as he walked into the cool shade of the woods, slowing and blinking in the gloom after the brightness of the fields and church yard. The trail lay ahead of him, narrow but clear enough and he began to walk down it, going faster now, wanting to catch up with Dean. The woods were cooler than the oppressive heat of the day in the open country, but they were a little scary as well, he thought, peering through the shadows under the trees and pushing back at the thick fringe that flopped hotly over his forehead.

_Just ahead_, he told himself firmly, _he's just ahead and if you hurry you can catch him before he gets to the river_.

He hurried, his gaze flicking from the soft path ahead of him to the trees to either side, his footfalls muted on the thick leaf-fall.

* * *

The sun had shifted across the sky and the shafts of gold, infiltrating through the heavy vines with their clusters of musky, golden fruit, stippled their skin, the heat in the still building as thick and cloying as the heat that enveloped him, swallowed him whole.

John groaned softly, a rumble in his chest as sensation detonated along his nerves, tightening every muscle, lighting him up with a flush of fire and an intense spiralling pleasure. His eyes, half-open and unfocussed, were as dark as hers, their breath mingling along with the salt moisture that sheened their bodies.

Nothing existed but here and now, and he couldn't get a breath, couldn't find one to drag in, every attempt sabotaged by a new peak, and she rippled around him, pulling him closer, deeper, until he couldn't feel a division between them and he cried out helplessly.

* * *

Dean stopped when he felt the back of his neck prickle. For the first time, he noticed how quiet the woods were, airless and silent. He could hear the rumbling of the thunder clearly now, still distant but approaching, the atmosphere heavy with humidity.

He turned in a slow circle, looking between the trees to either side of the narrow trail, his gaze slightly unfocussed, looking for the breaks in the patterns, for a different shape, a different colour, a different outline against the undergrowth and tangled branches. From up the trail, he heard a muffled thump, a soft gasp and his shoulders slumped a little. Sammy. Little pest had followed him down and –

The shadow that detached itself from the tree behind him made no sound, and he hit the ground hard, his breath driven out of his lungs by the weight on him, his nose filled suddenly with the malodorous scents of rotting flowers and rotten meat. He caught a quicksilver glimpse of a dead-white face, thin silver-blond hair, then he was thrown onto his back, his arms pinned to the soft leaf-covered ground by his wrists, and an agonising pain filled him, sharp teeth settling into the flesh of his shoulder, digging deep.

"NO!" he screamed as loudly as he could, thrashing against the weight on him, against the tearing pain and the smell of blood – his blood – seeping out around the mouth fastened to him. "RUN! HIDE!"

The vampire lifted its head and chuckled, and he saw its face, the skin hard and smooth as marble, dark purple eyes vividly bright and glowing against it, the mouth filled with dripping, scarlet, snaggle-toothed fangs.

"Too late for that," it said to him in a crooning whisper, its tongue slowly licking his blood from its lips.

* * *

Sammy dropped to the trail at the sound of his brother's scream. _Not_ pretending, _not_ play-acting, he knew. Dean had been trying to warn him.

His arm tightened hard around his bear and he slipped off the trail, creeping under the bracken and fallen logs, over the moss and fungi and between the thick wild raspberry and poison oak. He stopped when he saw them, a man kneeling on the trail, his brother's boots visible and jerking under him.

Panic hit him and he struggled against it, plastering his hand over his mouth, keeping the scream he felt inside. It was a monster. A monster attacking his brother. Dean would never have screamed if it hadn't been bad. Really bad. The steady logical progression of thought took away some of his fear, and he tried to work out what the best thing was to do.

If it had gotten Dean, he couldn't attack it, he thought. It was a long way back to the house, and Dean might need him here, if he could fight back somehow himself. Sammy vacillated between the equally weighted solutions unhappily. Stay or go. Dean's life depended on him.

He saw the creature sit up, its head thrown back, the long silvery-blond hair stirring slightly with the first outrunners of the coming storm. He watched it as it lifted it's arm to its mouth.

* * *

Lying on his side, sated, his muscles heavy and loose for the first time in a long time, John unabashedly drank in the sight of the woman beside him, all pale cream and gold and honey against the dark-green floral fabric of the chair and the light-filled greenery covering the gazebo.

Millie smiled at his expression, then looked past him, over his shoulder at the darkening sky to the south. "Storm's getting closer."

He turned to follow her gaze and nodded. "Looks like it'll be a bad one, we should get back to the house."

They dressed a little reluctantly, the moisture-filled warm silk of the air enough against their flushed skin and the clothing feeling heavy and scratchy and foreign. Taking Millie's hand, both noticed as the sunlight in the wild garden turned to pewter, becoming flat and hard and casting no shadows as the blue of the sky was diffused by high, wispy cloud.

"Dean!" John called out, opening the French doors and holding them for Millie to precede him. "Sammy!"

The house echoed with the shouts and he frowned, going in and closing the doors behind him, turning and calling out again, louder.

"I'll check their rooms," Millie said, turning for the stairs. John nodded and walked down the hall, glancing into the rooms as he passed them, stopping in the study and calling again.

He stood in the hall, undecided, and looked around as Millie's footsteps sounded on the stairs.

"No," she said, looking at him. "Not up there."

It wasn't the coming storm. The town was protected, the houses were protected, but if they'd gone off, into the fields and over the tracks to the river, there was no protection there. It'd been too hot to go that way, even with the beckoning prospect of bathing in the river, he thought. But the river ran through the woods as well.

"Stay here, keep 'em here if they get back before me," he said to her abruptly, swinging around and picking up the gear bag.

"Where are you going?"

"I'll start with the woods, down to the river past the church." He tightened the straps on the armour and picked up his belt, buckling it around his hips and settling the flat sheaths to either side. "Just stay here, alright?"

She nodded and watched him stride back down the hall, into the living room and through into the garden.

* * *

The light was dimming, in the woods, under the trees. At the edge of the forest, cool whispers of wind moaned softly between the trunks and shivered the dried undergrowth.

Dean struggled to stay conscious. He could feel something trickling down his chest, from an aching throb under his shoulder. He was gagging on the noxious odours from the creature on top of him and he couldn't drag in a clean, deep breath, couldn't get his body to work properly, or his thoughts to come together.

He watched uncomprehendingly as it lifted its arm, biting into the wrist.

"Smelled him there," it said to him, leaning close again, bright eyes in a face that was now flushed with colour, its weight compressing his chest, making it harder to breathe. "Smelled him and the other one and you tell him, when you're drinking him dry, you tell him that I sent you."

He flinched as something thick and cold and wet hit his mouth, spilling over his lips.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

_**July 10, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

John ran through the garden, feeling the heaviness in the air, glancing south and seeing the storm building above the hills beyond the village, seething black and iron and wine-dark purple clouds filled with flickering light and followed by a basso profundo reverberation he could feel through his bones, through his teeth, shaking the ground under his boots.

At the end of the garden, a weathered lych-gate led into the fields behind the church and he bolted through it, running hard across the parched ground. He caught a glimpse of Jim at the door to the church, the priest's shout snatched away by a gust of wind.

Leaping over the low stone wall and thudding down the track that led along the railway lines, he looked into the woods for the trail head that would take him to the river, his throat rasping from shouting out his sons' names, his ears prickling in alarm with the lack of an answer.

The line of cloud covered the sun as he saw the narrow opening between the trees, and a bolt of lightning lit the edge of the woods and the rough track to a stark black and white, half-blinding him, the scorched smell of ozone filling the air around him. Within the image branded against his retinas, he belatedly recognised another detail and he was running into the trees before the thunder shook the ground, his fist hard around the rough grip of machete. The narrow, white face glimpsed in the moment of the strike vanished as he plunged into the shadows, skidding on the soft leaf fall on the trail, his eyes feverishly searching the darkness.

Behind him, the first hard drops hit the ground, rattling on the canopies of the trees. Thunder crashed through the air and robbed him of hearing, and John turned, backing down the trail with an instinctive understanding that his eyes and ears would be useless here, against the creature he'd seen, in the furore and darkness of the storm. It was another sense, developed in his military service and finely-honed after four years of hunting that saved him as he dropped to the forest floor and rolled under the barely-glimpsed attack, slashing up and out without thought. The vampire spun around, fangs bloody and bared as it stared at the stump of its arm, and John scrambled to his feet, launching himself at it in the same motion, the thick, short blade slicing low and wide and biting deep into muscle and tendon and bone.

_Take the head_, Elkins' voice said harshly in his mind, and he rode the side-numbing blow to his ribs, the armoured arm strapped to his chest snapping out straight and hitting the monster's chest, sending it flying backwards into the trunk of a tree.

The machete thudded into the trunk a fraction of a second behind its impact, pinning the creature to the living wood, between the collarbone and top of the ribs.

"Too late," it said to him as he walked up to it, its face rosy-cheeked and the blood dripping from its severed limb warm and thick. "Too late for your boy."

* * *

Sammy clambered to his feet, looking fearfully around at the dark woods, flinching as thunder boomed overhead. Dean was still lying there, barely visible against the dark trail, just the white glimmer of his shirt standing out. He needed help, the little boy told himself. Needed it _now_.

He tightened his grip on the bear in his hand and scurried toward his brother, bent over a little, heart pounding in his ears. Closer, Dean looked pale, the freckles standing out over his nose and cheeks, his skin almost white. Sammy crept up to him, afraid of that pallor, afraid of what he would see when he reached him.

"Dean?" he whispered, his voice barely a breath. He fell backwards with a startled shriek as the crack of another lightning bolt struck, lighting up the woods even through the leaves. "Dean! I'm scared! C'mon, wake up! You're scaring me!"

He saw his brother's arm move slightly against the dark forest floor, and he sucked in a deep breath, getting to his knees and scrambling across to look at him.

"Dean?"

"S'okay, Sammy," Dean mumbled, turning his head. "I'm here, you're okay."

"De-ean," Sammy hiccuped the word, his throat filling up with fear and relief and thickness he had to swallow hard against. "Dean, it's a storm, we have to get home."

He watched as his brother's eyes opened a little, the green of the irises bright and vivid against the milk-pale skin.

"'Kay," Dean said, unable to hide the small whimper of pain as he rolled onto his shoulder, tried to push himself up. Sammy leaned forward, dragging at his arm.

"C'mon, Dad'll be angry," he said, tugging harder. "We need to go home."

For a second, he thought Dean hadn't heard him, his brother's head hanging, breath sawing harshly in and out of his mouth. Then Dean's head lifted and Sammy rocked back on his heels as he saw the thin traces of blood that were wreathing across those bright emerald eyes.

"Dean?"

Dean rolled himself onto his knees, a grimace crossing his face as he saw the doubt in Sammy's expression. He felt unaccountably cold, his muscles moving stiffly.

"It's okay, Sammy," he tried to reassure his baby brother. "Just – must've hit my head or somethin', feel kind of dizzy."

"Dean … your eyes look funny," Sammy said, inching away from him.

"Sammy, ssshh," he said, lifting his hands to his ears and pressing against them hard. "You don't have to yell."

Sammy looked at him, starting to shake as he saw Dean's fingernails, long and translucent-looking, against the side of his brother's head. "Dean…" he breathed.

"Jus' gimme a minute," Dean said, the last word coming out in a soft groan as a spearing stab of pain hit his stomach. He doubled-over, his hands dropping and arms wrapping around himself.

Sammy watched him fall sideways, shoulder hitting the ground then head bouncing onto it. Dean's eyes closed again, his face screwed up in agony. He arched up suddenly and Sammy scuttled backwards, eyes widening in horror at the piercing scream that exploded from his brother's mouth.

* * *

John snapped his right arm out again and the features of the vampire disappeared under the augmented power of the mechanical arm. He gripped the hilt of the machete and yanked it from the tree, turning and swinging in a single motion. The blade sliced effortlessly through the spine and flesh and buried itself an inch deep into the wood behind and the monster's body slid down the trunk to the ground.

_Not too late_, his thoughts hammered at him. _Can't be too late_.

He was racing along the narrow trail, the machete left behind, jumping over logs and trampling the rotten branches under him as he careened down the hillside in the deepening gloom.

"DADDY!"

His heart caught in his throat at the cry, booming against his ears as he saw Sammy stumbling up the trail toward him, eyes huge and dark, his bear held tightly against his side.

"Sammy, Christ!" He caught the little boy and hugged him tightly, looking over him fast for any injuries. "What happened? Did you see it?"

"There was a monster," Sammy confirmed, his teeth chattering as the raindrops found their way through the heavy screen of leaves and branches, hitting the ground around them faster and faster. "It hurt Dean."

"Where is he?" John barked out and Sammy pointed back down the trail.

The bolt of lightning and the clap of thunder were simultaneous, lighting up the trail behind Sammy, revealing a pale blur against the dark, leaf-matted ground. Looking back at his youngest, he felt immediately torn in two.

"Sammy, stay behind me, alright? You're going to be safe. I gotta get Dean and we'll go home, okay?"

Nodding doubtfully, Sammy looked down the trail, his bear clutched hard against his chest. John turned back to the trail and started to run.

He dropped to his knees, skidding the last few feet to his son's side, his eyes shifting from the pale skin of Dean's face, to the red-soaked mess of his shoulder, and the smooth, unmarked column of his neck. His focus narrowed abruptly to the hollow at the base of Dean's throat when he realised he was looking for a movement, the beat of a pulse there, and there was none to be seen.

His fingers reached out for the artery at the side of Dean's neck tentatively, needing to know but not wanting to be certain of that knowledge, his own heartbeat loud in his ears.

"It made him drink, Daddy," Sammy said, leaning past him to look down at his brother. "It held up its arm and made him drink its blood."

John's eyes closed involuntarily. There was no pulse beating in his son's neck. He opened them and leaned closer, seeing now that Dean's blood no longer flowed from the torn-up wound under the collarbone. _Turned_. That's what the fang had meant by 'too late'. Not _dead_. Turned.

"Sammy, run to the church, as fast as you can, tell Jim that I have to go back to Nebraska, tell him I need the car at the church, need it as fast as he can get it," John said, sliding his arms under Dean's shoulders and knees and straightening slowly, getting to his feet. "Can you do that, son? Go, run, now!"

"Yessir!" Sammy said, feeling some hope as he ran back up the trail. His father would save Dean. His father always knew what to do. He flinched and stumbled as another bolt hit the ground somewhere not too far away, the air crackling and burning with the scent of overcharged batteries, but he made himself run faster, up the trail and onto the track leading back to the church and the village, chest heaving and his heart pounding. Dean wouldn't die, he told himself. Dean _couldn't_ die. Like his father, nothing could really hurt his big brother.

Behind him, John carried Dean up the trail, dragging every detail of Gil's explanations of the cure of the Campbells from his memories; what was needed, how it worked, the process and procedure, ignoring the memories of that voice repeatedly saying it wasn't ready yet.

_Blood of the vampire _that turned him_._

That leapt out at him and he began to run, clutching Dean tighter against his chest as he sped up. Even under the wood's shelter, the raindrops pelted down, soaking skin and hair, mixing with his sweat and the tears that were falling unnoticed. The boy felt light in his arms, his head bouncing against his shoulder with every stride and he strained harder, pushing at his body to move faster over the slippery ground, over and through the rotten and broken and dried-out logs and branches that littered his route.

The vamp's body was still propped against the tree trunk where he'd left it, the head lost in the undergrowth. He let Dean down gently, and dug in the pouch strapped to his belt for his flask, feeling the bulbous shape in the midst of the other items in there. Pulling it out, he uncapped it and tipped out the holy water it'd held over his son's ripped shoulder, then held the flask at the severed neck, tilting the body toward him. The blood, cold and viscous, dripped incrementally and reluctantly from the vampire's neck, filling the thickened glass bottle drop by slow drop.

It was darker still now, the sky black at the end of the trail, the wind whistling through the branches closer to the road, shivering leaves and needles as it twisted down the trail with icy, wet fingers. John glanced over his shoulder as a soft moan came from behind him, seeing Dean's arm twitch on the ground beside him. He moved the body on a deeper angle, willing the blood to come out faster, to fill the damned flask before Dean woke, and the newborn hunger woke with him.

Tilting the glass bottle, he yanked the body down, realising with the soft thud of the shoulder on the ground that the sounds of the storm had gone, an eerie and silent calm filling the woods. The blood was flowing a little more quickly and John lifted a hand, rubbing at his ears, trying to quell their insistent prickling. He eased the bottle away from the rivulet of dark, red liquid, screwing the cap on quickly as he turned around.

His heart leapt in his mouth when he saw his son, hunkered on his haunches on the side of the trail, head lowered slightly, bright green eyes staring at him from beneath the dark brows.

"Dean," John said softly, his little finger tightening inside the metal and silk glove of the hydraulically powered weaponed arm. It was fully loaded, the spring mechanism oiled and checked. The blood had come from Gil and he'd kept it chilled. He replaced the flask in the pouch at his belt with the other hand, moving deliberately. "You still with me, son?"

"I tried to find you, tried to tell you where I was going," Dean said, and John's heart rose a little, his boy's voice tired and a bit scratchy but his own. Then Dean lifted his head, eyelids fluttering closed and his upper lip pulling back as the second set of teeth … _fangs_ … pointed and white and long, descended languidly from his gums. John felt a spurt of fear flux through him, chilling him, the faint click-click of the arm's cocking mechanism unheard beneath the thunder of his heart.

"It hurts, Dad. It _hurts_!"

"I know, chief," John whispered, his throat full of regret and shame and fear. "We're going to make you better, kiddo, I promise."

Somewhere, so deep inside he could hardly hear it, he was screaming. He shut away the screams along with the knowledge of them, shut down the emotions that were destabilising him, shut it all down with the ice-cold and crystal-clear thought that he needed to save Dean, needed to save his son and he could only do that if he was in control.

Dean's eyes opened, long, thick lashes casting shadows over his son's cheeks and John saw the predatory glint in their vivid emerald, felt his son's attention narrow to a stillness that could only presage action.

"He told me to tell you he sent me," Dean said, the words coming out indistinctly.

John's arm snapped up, fist closing tightly in the glove and the small dart hitting his son in the throat as he leapt across the trail. A second dart hit him in the chest as he landed in front of his father. John grabbed him, arms wrapped tightly around the boy's chest, feeling his struggles become slower, watching the bright colour fade out of his irises and the lids drop closed as the dead man's blood filled his bloodstream. The fangs withdrew and for a second, John could pretend that it was just Dean he was holding, asleep in his arms. The pretence couldn't last longer. Dean's skin had never been that shade of white, hard and shiny looking, veins and shadows a deepening blue around the eye sockets and under his jaw.

He pulled the darts from the boy and tucked them into the pouch, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders and the other beneath his knees and lifting him easily. Clinging to Dean's skin and hair, the smell of old, rotting blooms filled John's nose and mouth and his breath jammed up in his throat, stealing the strength from his arms and legs, freezing him as he tried to straighten with Dean's limp form in his arms.

_HOLD IT BACK!_, he screamed at himself. _Hold it back until he's safe again_. Throwing his head back, he dragged in a full lungful of the cool, moisture-laden air, feeling it push the emotions back down, loosen the tightness of his muscles. He looked up the trail, seeing the silvery glints of the raindrops past the trees, and he turned and began to run.

* * *

"JOHN!"

Jim's shout came through the grey sheets of pounding rain, and John looked up, seeing the blurry outline of the black car on the road ahead of him, the priest standing to one side of it. He ducked his head over his son's, boots sliding in the torrents of water that were sluicing the gravel and earth to mud around him.

"Where's Sam?" he yelled at Jim as he got to the car, ducking as Jim opened the front door and laying Dean along the front seat.

"Up at the house, we'll be following you –" Jim said, pressing closer to him.

"No!" John shook his head. "Stay here, keep them both safe."

"I don't think that's such a –"

"Jim," John said tersely, shucking the armour and grabbing two syringes of blood from his pouch. "I'm going like a bat outta Hell to get to Wayne, I can't – I won't stop to be your back up if something comes at us on the road, and I _need_ to know they're safe."

Jim chewed on his lip for a moment then nodded. "They'll be safe, John, don't worry about that."

John slid into the driver's seat, lifting Dean's head until it rested on his thigh and looked up at the priest. "She full up?"

Jim nodded. The fuel would take them to Nebraska and back again if needed.

Twisting the key, John ran his fingers through his hair, flicking the excess moisture into the back as the engine rumbled to life. He didn't look back at Jim, his foot working clutch and accelerator, the engine pitch rising as he changed up and built speed. By the end of the road, he was doing sixty and the heavy rear-end sent up a rooster tail of stones as he swung the car around the corner.

* * *

Jim strode across the churchyard, the long black coat flapping wetly behind him. He ignored the driving rain and stopped at the doors of the church as they cracked open.

"Tommy, keep the doors shut and locked until I get back, and ring the bell if you see or even smell anything you're worried about," he said brusquely, taking the long canvas duffle the boy handed out to him. "Isaac and Clark know what to do, and they've prepared everyone, alright?"

The skinny teen looked up with huge eyes and nodded quickly and Jim pulled in a breath, as much to counteract his guilt for leaving his flock without him as to reassure the youth in front of him.

"We'll be back soon, just keep it all locked up and you'll be fine," he added more gently.

"Yeah, Pastor Jim, I will, don't you worry," Tommy said, straightening a little.

"Good man."

He turned and swung the heavy bag onto his shoulder, going down the steps and around the corner of the church, feet squelching through the sodden grass. John had no idea of the possible hornet's nest he might be stirring, he thought, running a hand through his wet hair to push it back off his face. Hunters, even those who frequented the roadhouse, were not generally renowned for their ability to put aside the things that had driven them into the life.

Saturated to the bone by the time he reached the gravelled drive of Abely's house, he was relieved to see Millie and Sam sitting in the big truck, headlights blazing in the gloom and the engine's low growl audible over the heavy rain.

"What did John say?" Millie asked as he opened the door and swung into the cab, passing her his wet gear bag.

He flashed her a sharp grin. "Said we should stay home and wait for him."

She snorted disbelievingly. "Stubborn man! As if we would."

"I didn't argue," Jim said, putting the truck into gear and crunching over the shining gravel. "We won't catch him now, and he'll go straight to Gil's."

"Rumour mills are quick," Millie said sourly, wrapping her arm around Sammy who was tucked in beside her. "Maybe if he stays there, and no one else is aware, we might get lucky."

Jim nodded. "We'll make our own luck this time."

The truck lurched over the buried iron in the gateway and sped up, Jim's hands light and sure on the wheel as he pushed down on the accelerator.

* * *

_**July 12, 1988. Wayne, Nebraska**_

John forced himself to take another deep breath as he looked at the shaking of his hand. The trembling eased and he pulled the syringe from Dean's neck, capping the needle automatically and tossing it into the bag on the back seat as he stared down at his son's face.

It was the fourth injection he'd had to give him, pulling over to the side of the road each time he noticed the boy stirring beside him. It hadn't gotten any easier.

Dean's skin was smooth and hard and white, the pale freckles standing out against it. Even closed, John couldn't brush aside the memories of his eyes, shockingly effulgent and filled with avarice and pain and a mute pleading to make it stop, the whites slowly filming over with red if he took too long to stab the needle into his neck.

He wondered bleakly if he would ever be able to look at his son again without the images overlaying him.

Pulling the hand-woven blanket higher, he started the car again, the throaty rumble of the engine reassuring in its reliability and power, and eased the car back onto the road. Another twenty miles and he'd be there, he told himself. He had the blood, he would go straight to Gillette's house and … and Gil would give Dean the cure and he would be fine.

In the back of his mind, the ceaseless litany continued, turgid and illogical, filling him with the ache of guilt. _You knew you'd have to pay, knew it would cost to have what you wanted, knew the price would be high somewhere down the line – I didn't know it would be my son, he argued fruitlessly, the opposing voice cold and hard and mercilessly going on and on at him. You knew there would be something and you ignored that feeling, betrayed your friend, betrayed the trust in you, betrayed Mary and yourself – I need too, I'm not steel and iron_, he whimpered to himself, ground down by the endless looping shame.

The road stretched out in front of him, broken asphalt and chips of gravel, forest and fields flashing by to either side. Against his thigh, the weight of Dean's head rested, not warming his skin, cold and dead and still.

He'd thought that any price he'd have to pay would be his. He couldn't bear the thought that his oldest boy would be paying instead.

* * *

Gil was standing on the porch when he pulled up in front of the house, the inventor's face drawn and his eyes narrowed and hard behind the delicate wire-rimmed glasses.

"John, get him inside, quickly," he called out, pushing open the front door.

Looking up in surprise, John asked, "What's wrong?"

The tall, thin man just shook his head, gesturing for him to hurry. He drew Dean gently out of the car, checking that he had another syringe of the blood at his belt, and carried him up the steep flight of porch steps, walking past Gil into the crowded hallway.

"Where?"

"Downstairs," Gil said, his gaze scanning the quiet garden as he pulled the front door shut behind them. "The laboratory."

John hurried down the hall, turning before the end and walking cautiously down the stairs, shifting the boy in his arms higher and closer and feeling Dean's head loll over his shoulder.

The laboratory was brightly lit, two of the long metal-topped tables cleared and scrubbed clean, Gil's apparatus neatly arranged along the counters closest to them.

"On the table, yes," Gil nodded as John eased his son onto the closest of the tables. "I need you to scrub, John, at the sink, use the blue bottle."

"Why?" John asked, turning to look at him.

"I'll need you to assist and we must maintain a completely sterile environment," Gil said absently, drawing on a pair of paper-fine silk gloves as he walked around the table and looked at Dean intently.

"Assist?" John asked. "Gil, this is my boy, he's not an experiment that you can play with –"

The inventor looked at him coolly. "No, he is not, John," he said firmly. "But nevertheless, we must ensure that we follow precise protocols, the most stringent practice here for what we are about to try may save the lives of many others, if the correct procedures can be followed consistently, yes?"

Ducking his head, John turned away. He was right, he thought. It wasn't only Dean's life at stake here, although he was the only one on the table. A shudder rippled through him as he walked to the sink and turned on the water, leaving his hands under it until it was as hot as he could stand and using the foaming liquid from the blue bottle to clean every speck and trace of grime and dirt from them. If it were a success – _it had to be, he couldn't lose his son, couldn't, could not, wouldn't_ – then it would be the saving of the lives of countless hunters and victims in the future. His feelings, he thought, with a backwards glance at the man behind him, would not be allowed to stand in the way of that.

"Done?" Gil turned and looked at him and he nodded. "Good, where's the blood of the vampire?"

* * *

Jim pulled up out the front of the roadhouse, his heart sinking as he saw the crowded parking lot.

"I'd say the news has gone ahead of us," he said heavily to Millie. She nodded, looking around the lot.

"Get Sammy inside and with Ellen, I'll head up to Gil's," he told her, waiting as she gathered the little boy in her arms and slipped down from the cab. "I'll wager Bill and Ellen already know the story but make sure that they know all of it."

Millie's face hardened as she gave him a quick nod of confirmation. "They'll know."

She turned away and walked to the front door, transferring Sammy to the other shoulder as she reached for the knob. Jim watched her go inside and shifted into reverse, backing through the other vehicles until he could turn. He hoped they'd arrived in time, that he wouldn't find a group at the Pegotty place.

* * *

Inside the oddly-shaped main saloon, Millie hesitated just past the threshold as silence fell with her entrance. She lifted her chin and looked for Bill or Ellen, ignoring the pointed stares she could feel plucking and prying at her as she crossed the room.

Ellen swept around the corner of the bar as she got closer, arms outstretched. "I've got Travis and Abe upstairs, looking after the children," she murmured as she took the boy from Millie's arms and tucked him against her.

"What's going on?" Millie murmured back, leaning closer to her under the pretence of brushing back Sammy's hair.

"Belthorpe and Morton were on the road when someone managed to get a message to them from Blue Earth," Ellen said. "Got to Gil's place about two hours ago, fortunately before John did and Gil sent them down here."

"What are they afraid of?" Millie lifted a lock of loose hair back from her face and looked around the room.

"Got me," Ellen said. "Stay with Bill, I'll get Sammy upstairs and out of the way, we might need to do something –"

The front door banged open and a young man came in; Ainslie, Millie recognised the smooth face belatedly.

"He's there," Ainslie said, a note of self-satisfaction in his voice. "Pulled up fifteen minutes ago."

"Right."

Millie's head turned to see Daniel, Roy and Walt get up from the table across the room.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Daniel?" Ellen said loudly, walking toward them and angling to get in front of the door. Millie followed, hearing the scrape of chairs pushed back behind her, the clunk of the bar's hatch flopping down onto the timber counter.

"Ellen, you know we can't afford sentimentality in these times," the vampire hunter said, looking at her, his gaze brushing over the boy in her arms.

"What exactly do you call 'sentimentality', Daniel?" Millie asked him as she came up beside Ellen, her shoulder brushing the other woman's. "Saving a life? That being sentimental in your book now?"

"Now, Millie."

She turned to see Oran Belthorpe walking toward her, Taff Morton at his heels.

"This is hunter business, sweetheart," he continued as he stopped in front of her, his features sharp and his voice condescending. "Women, bless 'em, have different sensibilities to these things –"

Had he not uttered those words, in that tone, a lot more of the people in the bar might've been content to sit it out, and watch from the sidelines, Millie thought later, but as soon as he started, Lorena snorted loudly and got up from the table she was sharing with Delia, strolling across the floor, her slight drawl deepening and widening with a rich contempt.

"My god, Oran, it is a source of continual amazement to me that each time I believe you've reached the bottom of your stupidity, you manage to find another level." She stopped beside Millie, crossing her arms lightly over her chest.

"No offence meant," Oran said sharply, turning a dull, brick-red as he watched her walk toward him. "You and I both know that you've frozen up a few times in the field."

To his surprise, she smiled at him. "An' you and I both know you've soiled your britches more than a few times on a hunt, Oran," she said loudly. "A good enough reason to keep your pie-hole well and truly closed now, surely?"

Millie stifled the laugh that bubbled in her chest. Oran's wife had no compunctions of telling people about the secrets of her husband's laundry needs; she'd had no idea the knowledge had been spread widely enough to reach here.

The man's colour deepened and the look he gave Lorena would've killed her on the spot if he'd had any kind of psychic power behind it, she thought. He did stop talking, however.

"Ellen, he's harbouring a vampire," Daniel said, cutting across the low laughter that had filled the room.

"He's a child!" Ellen snapped at him, taking a step closer.

"An' I don't believe you should be talking so much about the dangers of loose vampires, Elkins," Rufus Turner said slowly, walking from the back office to stand between the hunters and the door. "Since it was obviously a mistake on your part that let a vamp follow Winchester back to his home."

Daniel's face tightened and the three women in front of him closed together unconsciously, Lorena's hand dropping casually to the pearl grip of the six-shooter at her hip.

The ratcheting shuck of a pump action was inordinately loud in the silence that followed, Bill walking around the bar, the gun crooked easily in one arm.

"Doesn't matter who's fault it was or what happened," he said, his normally gentle voice soft and menacing. "No one's leaving here till Gil sends word. One way or t'other. Anyone who wants to try is going to be so full of buckshot there won't be enough whole pieces left over to burn."

Elkins looked at the five people standing in front of him for a long moment, then shrugged and turned away. "Gil won't be able to cure him," he said quietly, looking around the room. "And you'll need me then."

"We'll give him – give _both_ of them – that chance first, Daniel," Ellen's voice rang out firmly. She looked at her husband and he nodded slightly, his gaze shifting to the other side of the room. Trenton and Cornelius materialised out of the crowd and walked to stand in front of the door, both of them suited in their hybrid augmented armour, weapons already drawn.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

"John, you'll need to put those on him," Gil said, gesturing in the direction of the thick leather and iron restraints that hung limply from the sides of the table as he lifted Dean's head and opened his mouth. "We cannot give him the cure until the effects of the dead man's blood has worn off, and we will not be able to hold him once it does."

Nodding sharply, John moved to the side of the table and lifted the strap and chain, his stomach tightening as he cinched the leather through the buckle, his son's wrist so small and narrow in the circle. It was better than watching Gil feeding the rubber hose into Dean's mouth and throat, inch by inch, the inventor's face drawn and white with concentration.

The soft knock at the door barely registered on him but he felt Gil's movement stop and looked up. Mae stood there, her hands wringing the apron she wore, and behind her Jim Murphy looked back at him.

"Can you do it, Gil?" Jim asked, moving past the house-keeper and into the room. Behind him, Mae pulled the door tightly closed.

"Shoot the bolts on that, would you, Jim?" Gil said distractedly, bending over the boy's head again. "Don't want any untimely interruptions."

John looked at him, then over to Jim. "Interruptions?"

At the door, Jim pushed the three iron bolts home and turned back to the room. "Some of the hunters consider a vampire a threat, no matter what age he is, or how it happened," he said, the disappointment in his fellow man clear in his expression.

"Millie's down at the roadhouse –" He raised a hand to quell John's anticipated protest. "Sammy's safe and so is she. She'll have told Bill and Ellen the full story and they'll keep them there until Dean's …"

"Saved or dead," John finished for him, his face bitter. "So they want to kill him."

Jim looked at him, one brow lifting slightly.

John nodded and buckled the next strap around his son's ankle. Elkins would have instigated that, he thought, the vampire hunter had spoken of hope for the cure, but he hadn't believed in it.

"How'd they find out so quick?"

"I don't know, John," Jim said, walking to the other side of the table and picking up the restraint, buckling it gently around Dean's wrist.

Gil picked up the end of the hose, sniffing cautiously at it. "It's in his stomach," he said, the hardness easing from his expression. "When was the last injection, John?"

"An hour ago, just outside of Wayne."

"Then we don't have much time," Gillette said, turning from the table to the long counter. "Make sure that the chest strap is secured as well," he added over his shoulder.

Jim watched the man pick up the long, thick belt, passing him the buckle end.

"Would God punish me this way, Jim?" John whispered, his face hidden as he stared down at the dead white skin of his son.

"Punish you?" Jim frowned, adjusting the wooden block that supported the boy's neck, leaving his head tilted back at an acute angle. "For what?"

"For my own selfish desires," John answered him, green eyes dark under the black brows as he raised his head slightly to look at the priest.

Millie, Jim thought. Between Millie's account and what they'd heard from Sammy, it was clear to him where the man's guilt and shame lay. He shook his head slightly.

"God doesn't punish love, John," he said firmly, reaching to grip the other man's wrist. "It's not a sin."

* * *

Ellen walked along the dark hall, the slur and rustle of her skirts brushing the floor and skirting boards barely audible. The roadhouse was a rabbit warren of add-ons, all with their own doors and windows, and it was difficult to police. She wasn't prepared to let anyone out until she'd heard from Mae.

At the end of the hall, half-hidden by the shadows of the alcove near the door, two men leaned statue-still against the wall. She picked up the blued gleam of their guns after a moment's searching for it.

"Anyone trying to come this way, Denis?"

"Nah, even that young hothead wouldn't try and break out without Elkin's say-so, chère," Denis said, his thick Franco accent compounded by the deep, rough voice. "Most of 'em never ever seen a night-eater."

"Daniel's still in the bar," she said. "He looks like he's prepared to wait. What stirred up the others?"

"Belthorpe," Harrison said sourly, shifting a shoulder against the panelling and a sliver of light touching one side of his scarred face. "Came in here and went straight to Elkins, talking about Winchester's kid like he was Dracula himself. Worked them all into a tizz about the vamp following them from Blue Earth."

There was just the hint of a question in the hunter's voice and Ellen shook her head. "John killed it there and then," she said firmly. "The cure needed its blood and he wouldn't have left it anyway."

She watched the two men exchange a neutral glance. "That's what we thought as well," Denis said, lifting a shoulder in a Gallic shrug.

"Don't slack off, you two," she reminded them. "We stay locked down until it's over."

"Gillette think he's got the cure right?"

For a second, her breath caught in her chest and she couldn't speak. "I don't know. I'm praying it's right."

"We all be prayin', Ellen," Denis agreed, lifting the barrel of his gun. "But we be watchin' too".

* * *

John held the funnel and the top of the tube and Gil paused as he lifted the beaker, looking at the tremble in the hunter's hands. "Jim, take over from John, please," he said tersely. "John, keep an eye on his pulse points, I'll need to know exactly when you see the heart trying to re-start."

Unable to trust his voice, John nodded, fixing his gaze on the base of his son's throat. Jim's hands were rock-steady and Gil poured the dark mixture into the funnel slowly, listening as it travelled down the tube into the boy's stomach.

"How long –?"

"I don't know." Pegotty said, tipping the last of the liquid in. "From the notes, and the way I perceive the active ingredients to work, it could be a few minutes or longer. The stomach lining has barriers to the blood stream that will take time to filter through."

He put the beaker down and began to carefully withdraw the tubing. John saw the red gleam of blood along its length and looked back at Dean's neck, his hand resting lightly on his son's chest, his heart hammering against his own ribs.

When the slight rise and fall ceased, it took him several seconds to register the change.

"Gil, he's not breathing."

"Jim, get me the book that's on the bench – now, if you please," Gil said, leaning past John and settling his fingertips on Dean's narrow chest, his eyes closing as he concentrated on the information transmitted through them.

Jim swung around and strode to the bench, finding the thick, leather-bound ledger easily, open to the inventor's spidery notes on the Campbell cure. He grabbed it and turned back, staring at the frozen tableau in front of him as if he wasn't a part of it, the two men leaning over the boy, one's face drawn in the anticipation of unbearable grief, the other's blank, admitting to no failure of science or faith.

"Here," he said, his voice thick. He put the book on the table above Dean's head, looking down at the boy's face. His lips had a blue cast to them and he could see the fine blood vessels beneath the polished-looking white skin. Every dark hair of Dean's brows stood out sharply, every eyelash sharp and clear as if they were somehow painted on.

"Gil…" John breathed. He couldn't feel or see any kind of movement in his son.

The inventor lifted his hand and stepped to the head of the table, flipping back through the ledger several pages, his eyes skimming over the notes fast, mouth pursed, brows drawn together.

* * *

Millie turned at the sound of the engines in the gravelled yard out the front of the building, her gaze flicking across the room to Bill, who caught it and nodded. Beside her, Lorena let out a gusty exhale, and got to her feet.

"Ready for a little action?" the woman murmured softly to her companions and her hand dropped to the curved grip of her gun.

"Anytime, anyplace," Delia agreed, her voice equally quiet as she and Millie stood up.

The tall wraith-hunter and the pony-tailed septuagenarian lifted their weapons, the clank and whirr of the mechanised armour loud in the silence of the room as they took position on either side of the door and waited for Ellen.

She strode across the room, dark green skirts flying and the hard leather soles of her boots clacking sharply. The double doors had been replaced with a single, solid plank door, and from the outside, a heavy rapping was clearly audible to the room.

Shooting the bolts open, Ellen opened the door warily, keeping the toe of her boot beneath its edge as she peered out.

"What the hell, Ellen?"

"Abely!"

Ellen opened the door as Millie shot past her, smiling slightly at the nonplussed expression on the hunter's face as Millie cannoned into him, rocking him back a step or two.

"What?" he said, his arm curling automatically around her. "What happened?"

"Come in," Ellen told him, nodding at the travel-grimed hunter standing behind him on the uneven boards of the porch. "Quick."

Even with Millie clinging to his side, Abely felt the division in the room, felt the eyes on him as he stepped through the doorway and heard Darby clump in behind him. Bill's expression was stony; Lorena and Delia were both tense, standing with their weight balanced as if they thought they'd be forced to fight at any second. Ellen's shoulders were rigidly hunched beneath the soft folds of her velvet jacket, and he saw Trenton nod to him fractionally as he passed the wraith-hunter, finger slipping from the trigger-guard when he closed the door.

"Someone want to tell me what's going on?"

"Winchester's boy was turned," Oran called out from the other side of the room. Abely looked at him, noting with a hunter's instinctive awareness the tension that radiated from the men and women sitting at the grouping of tables, apart from the rest, as ready for action as Lorena and Delia were. "He's a vampire and these fools are preventing us from our doing our jobs."

Lifting a brow slightly, Abely's gaze shifted from Oran to Daniel. The ginger-haired hunter sat at the table, one hand curled around a short glass of whiskey, staring at the amber liquid fixedly.

"That so, Daniel?"

"John took him to Gil," Ellen muttered beside him.

Abely nodded, already knowing the scenario, what had occurred here. "You couldn't wait to take his head, Oran?"

Her arm still around him, Millie felt his fury through the contraction of his muscles, his voice remaining affable, his expression pleasant.

"You correct me now, if I'm wrong, Daniel," he said, looking back at the vampire hunter. "But hunters stick together, that was always the way, wasn't it? Your daddy and mine, hunting together, made no difference what the situation was, they had each other's backs?" He looked around the tables, his gaze stopping here and there on the men and women. "Wasn't that right, Penny? Hunters look after their own?"

"Abely –" The dark-haired woman started to say, her gaze dropping beneath his cold blue stare and whatever she'd been about to say dying away.

"No cure for vampirism, Abely, you know that," Elkins said softly, lifting his eyes to the other man. "Never has been, never will be."

"No, I _don't_ know that, Daniel," Abely said, an edge to his voice suddenly. "Gil's been working pretty damned hard on it and we don't know if he'll succeed or fail." He looked around at them. "You got so keen to kill everything that you forgot that we're here to save people?"

"Abely, that boy is turned – you think he's ever gonna be right again?" Daniel said, getting to his feet and walking around that the table. "You think he's ever gonna be truly human again?"

"The Campbells saved four people from 1860 to 1890, Daniel," Abraham called out from the doorway to the staircase, Bill moving aside as the old man walked into the saloon. "That's a fact, and one you know. Cyrus lost the original recipe when his mother passed, but those people were saved and they were as human after as you or me."

The golden-tinted overhead lamps tinted the old hunter's skin to a purply-black, catching the threads of silver in the tight, charcoal curls that were cut close to his scalp. A long scar, knotted and lumpy and pale pink against the darkness of his cheek twisted and pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"I know what Oran's beef is," Abraham said acerbically, turning to favour the man with a gimlet-eyed stare. "And Morton's just a dumb fool who'll follow anyone. What I wanna know is why you won't give a child a fighting chance?" He looked back at Elkins. "Why, in fact, you've let these folks believe there's no hope when you know full well that he could be saved?"

Aware that he was under scrutiny, Elkin's face shuttered up, and he lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug, turning away from the old hunter. He picked up the glass and swallowed the contents in a mouthful, setting it back on the table.

"Ellen, since we're stuck here till it's over, you got a room free?"

She nodded, eyes narrowing slightly as she walked back to the bar. Carl handed her a large brass key and she turned, tossing it to the vampire hunter. "Three-twelve," she told him.

As he picked up the bulky Gladstone from the floor beside his chair, a mutter of conversation rose softly around the room.

"What the hell was that about?" Abely said in a low voice to Abraham as they watched him walk to the stairs and out of view.

"Any of you folks gonna take on a vampire without him?" Abraham said, his voice lilting slightly with the unspoken challenge. The hunters looked sheepishly at each other, Oran scowling as he turned around and stomped to one of the back booths, Morton following him silently.

Abraham nodded and looked at Abely. "I'm thirsty."

Abely's eyes narrowed a little, mouth twisting up. "Have to buy you a drink, then."

"I'd be much obliged," the older man said, gesturing to the bar. "Make it a double."

"Yeah."

Millie looked from him to Abraham and back again. "You're gonna sit down and have a drink? Now?"

Looking down at her, Abely shrugged. "Go tell Ellen she can lighten up on the guards, no one'll go anywhere as long as Daniel stays here."

She caught her lip between her teeth doubtfully and he slid his arm down her back, tapping her bottom lightly with his hand as he looked across at Ellen.

"You're gonna bring me up to speed when I get back, Abely Thompson," she told him warningly, swinging around and walking away.

"Carl, we get a bottle over here?" he called out to the young woman behind the bar, gesturing to a table. She nodded and he sat down, Bill drawing up a chair next to him as Abraham sat opposite.

"So?" Abely asked, glancing sideways at Harvelle then back to Abraham. "What was that about?"

"Elkin's had a wife," Abraham said, his voice deep and low. "She was turned and he went to Gil, asked for the cure."

Bill exchanged a glance with Abely. "When was this?"

"A long time ago," Abraham said tiredly. "Nearly twenty years now. Frannie was Buck Johansson's girl, you ever meet him?"

Abely nodded and Bill shook his head. "What happened?"

"Vamp was an old one, and he escaped when Elkins and his pa hit the nest." The old hunter stopped as Carl brought a bottle and three glasses to the table, pouring them shots and leaving the bottle there. "Name of Luther, told Elkins that he'd come out to the new world with the pilgrims, although I got a feelin' the Campbells would'a had him if he had." He tipped the glass up and closed his eyes as the whiskey slid down his throat. "He followed them back here, wasn't much of a community back then, just a few of us, living on the outskirts of the town. Daniel was out, and Luther took Frannie, kept her for three days, brought her back turned."

"Had she fed?" Bill asked.

"No, she was starving and just about crawling out of her skin with the hunger," Abraham said softly, the memory of the night playing behind his eyes. "We dosed her up and Daniel took her to Gil, but –"

"But they didn't have the blood of Luther and it didn't work," Abely cut in, his gaze dropping to the table.

"No, it almost worked but they didn't have that ingredient," Abraham agreed. "It took the hunger, and it took the paleness from her skin, but she wasn't right in the head afterwards, her senses never came back all the way to normal and – well, she wasn't the same, sweet-natured girl she'd been."

"Who killed her?" Bill asked.

"Daniel did." Abraham looked at him, his mouth curled down. "Shot her and took her head and burned her remains. Buck took his own life the next day and Daniel start hunting Luther."

Bill and Abely turned their heads to look at the women standing beside the bar. Neither could imagine being forced into a situation like that, neither wanted to give it any mental room at all. They had too many nightmares already.

* * *

"Do something!" John said, his gaze flicking from his son's bare and unmoving chest to the clock on the wall again.

Jim looked at Gil. The inventor was staring fixedly at the boy's inner elbow, above which he'd tied a short length of rubbing tubing. The pale skin was hard and still.

"I can't, John," Gil said shortly. "Not until his heart starts again."

"It's been more than fifteen minutes, how's his fucking heart going to start again?!" John said angrily, desperation riddling his voice as he fought against the deepening knowledge of his son's death.

"John –" Jim started to say, when Gil uncapped the long glass syringe he held and stabbed it into Dean's chest.

"What the –" John screamed, his hands clenching into fists, rising involuntarily.

"I saw a beat," Gil snapped back at him, depressing the brass plunger. "Wait! Just wait!"

Dean arched up violently against the restraints holding him to the table, every muscle contracted rigidly, blood vessels and tendons and sinew standing out like tensioned wire under his skin. His eyes flew open and a long stream of greenish-black fluid arced from his mouth, splashing over the table and floor.

"Dean!" John said as Gil pulled the needle out and put it aside. "Dean!"

"John, turn his head!" Jim gestured sharply as the boy pulled in a deep breath, opening his mouth again. John slid his hands under his son's head, turning it to the other side of table as another stream of liquid was jettisoned, this one a dark red and frothy, the stench of rotten flowers filling the room as it hit the floor.

"What's – what is this?" John asked, looking from Jim to Gil.

"The blood of the vampire," Gil said quickly, his eyes on the ledger, his voice high with relief. "The cure pulls it back into the stomach and the convulsions expel it from the body."

"He's choking," Jim said, undoing the straps on his side. "John, get those straps off, we need to get him on his side."

Dean's face was red and darkening as the fluid backed up in his throat, his chest heaving in fast, uneven jerks. John's fingers flew over the buckles and lifted him as the chest band fell clear, Jim taking him from the other side, both supporting him as he leaned over the edge of the table and vomited another pool of blood and bile onto the floor.

In his hands, Dean felt light, John thought incoherently, hollow and empty. The boy groaned as his body seized again, and under his fingers John felt a wave of heat flush through his son, followed by a second flux of icy, clammy cold.

"Dean, it's okay, you're gonna be okay," he said, voice low and rumbling, the words coming out in a steady, unconscious stream. "You'll be okay, it'll be okay, I got you, son."

Next to Dean's head, Jim watched the second set of teeth withdrawing from the boy's mouth, the bones changing shape beneath his lip, filling his mouth with blood.

"Fangs are disappearing," he said to Gil, supporting Dean's head as another gushing flow erupted from him.

"Good, that's good," Gil muttered distractedly, his gaze dropping to the ledger and rising back to the boy on the table. "John, you should be feeling him getting hotter and colder?"

John nodded miserably, fingers tightening on Dean's shoulders as he arched up again. "Yeah, yes, his body temp is fluctuating like crazy."

"Good. The cure pulls the blood from every cell, every blood vessel. The de-petrification process has begun," Gil said, making a notation on the page. He looked back at John. "It's good news, John. It means it's working."

John caught Jim's flickered glance at the inventor, a sharp thrill of fear twisting through him as he saw the warning in it.

"What? Jim!?"

"Nothing, John," Jim soothed, his fingers tightening on Dean's jaw. "He's going to be fine."

"Goddamn it!" The words came out of his throat unrecognisably in a low moan, his eyes bright and pleading as he looked at the priest. "If there's anything – don't fob me off now, not now!"

"We had all the ingredients, John," Gil said calmly, moving beside the hunter and settling his hand on his shoulder. "All of them, and it's working, we are not going to beg trouble until it troubles us, understand?"

Dean coughed, a deep, hacking cough that wracked his whole body, shuddering against the grip of the two men holding him. A trickle of blood spilled from his mouth and John felt warmth through his fingers. He looked down, his breath catching in relief as he saw a faint flush of pink spreading through his son's skin.

Easing him onto his back, an arm wrapped tightly around his shoulder and supporting him, he looked into Dean's face. There too, the deathly pallor and polished hardness had gone. He looked too thin, John thought, watching the lashes tremble against his cheeks. They rose slightly and Dean looked at him, his irises their familiar deep green, the whites clear.

"Dad?" he croaked, and John ducked his head, his chest and throat so full he couldn't breathe, couldn't answer.

"Get him some water," Gil said to Jim, gesturing to the sink. "It's extremely dehydrating." He picked up a stethoscope, setting the small, round disc on the boy's chest and listening. The beat was slow, but steady, and he nodded to John's unspoken question.

"Heart beat has been reinstated, it's a little slow, but that might be due to a drop in blood pressure with the unavoidable settling of his blood," he said crisply, making another notation on the ledger's page. "Dean, how are you feeling?"

John watched his son's eyes roll to look at Gil. "What?"

"Minor disorientation from the change in the senses," Gil noted, looking back at Dean and speaking more loudly. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," the boy whispered, his voice hoarse and thickened as he turned his gaze back to his father. "So – tired."

Jim brought a glass of water and John took it from him, setting the rim against Dean's lips, tipping it up slightly. Dean swallowed convulsively, his face screwing up as the cool water hit his throat, then smoothing out with another mouthful.

"Not too much at first, just little sips," Gil cautioned them. "John, it would be best if Dean recovered here, I'll have Mae set up a convalescent diet for him."

The knock on the door made all three men jump and Jim walked across, undoing the bolts and cracking the door slightly to look out.

"Abely's here," Mae told him through the slit. "Not leaving 'til he's seen John and the boy."

Jim nodded. "We'll be up shortly, Mae, tell him –"

Gil leaned past him, pulling the door slightly wider. "Tell him that Dean is in no condition for visitors, but he can see John in twenty minutes," he said briskly. "We need the guest room ready for the boy, Mae, and some broth, something very light but rich, you know the thing I mean."

She nodded, and started to turn away.

"Oh, and any word from the Harvelles?" he asked.

"Abely says they're waiting to see if the cure worked or not, still barricaded up in there, but no fighting," she told him shortly over her shoulder, her voice filled with disapproval. "Stupid men," she muttered as she clomped up the hall to the stairs. "No more sense than a bunch of hunting dogs."

"No argument there," Jim said softly to Gil, turning back to look at John, holding his son and giving him sips of the water.

"No, but they're afraid," Gil said with a shrug. "More rumours have been coming in. Things they know nothing of. Fear is a powerful goad, Jim, powerful and indiscriminate." He turned to look at the priest. "I haven't heard from Emerson or Mina."

"They've been buried in what they brought out from KC and in the basement under the church, going through my library," Jim told him. "You could come back with us, Gil?"

The inventor's nose wrinkled up involuntarily and Jim hid a smile. Gil was mildly agoraphobic, something he tried very hard to keep from becoming general knowledge in the town where weaknesses were frequently exploited.

"Yes, you might be right," he said unwillingly. "I need to see them."

* * *

John carried Dean up the back stairs of the house, following Mae along the winding servants' halls and into a wider corridor. She opened a door and stood back for him to go in, following him and closing the door behind her. The room was large and furnished richly, one wall decorated in a fanciful tromp l'oeil of woods and mountains, the other three covered in thick, embossed wallpaper in muted shades plucked from the colours in the painting. A solid four-poster bed sat squarely in the centre of the wall opposite the window, pale green silk drapes drawn back from the sides and swagged at the head and foot of the bed, and dark furniture, gleaming like polished satin, a tall armoire, night-stands to either side of the bed and a gentleman's chiffoniere, stood like elder statesmen on guard against the walls . A small fire burned in the hearth and John was grateful as he felt the almost-continuous shivers of the boy in his arms begin to slow in the warm embrace of the room.

"I'll be up in five minutes with the broth, Mr Winchester," Mae said softly as he laid Dean on the bed and pulled the covers over him. "He'll need rest, more than anything."

John nodded, pulling up a spindly, tapestry-upholstered chair to the side of the bed and sitting down, his hand over Dean's.

He heard the door open and close behind him, and Dean opened his eyes, burrowing deeper into the comfort of the soft mattress as the bed-clothes warmed around him.

Gil had done a number of tests in the laboratory before he'd allowed John to move his son. Some of them had been obvious, physical tests on lung capacity, reflexes, muscle strength and the like. Others, the series of questions Gil had asked, had been less obvious. He'd recognised the memory checks, and he thought that Gil had been testing Dean's cognitive ability with some, but others had baffled him, Dean's answers even more baffling, although the tall, thin man had seemed pleased with them.

"You need to rest," he told Dean now, his hand closing more firmly around the boy's. "Gil and Jim said that your senses will return to normal in a few days."

Dean nodded, eyes half-closed against the light coming through the tall window. It still hurt to talk, his throat inflamed and raw. He moved his head slightly, looking past his father to the jug of water on the night-stand. John followed his gaze and released his hand, picking up the jug and pouring a glass, slipping an arm beneath his son's shoulders and helping him to drink.

"Sammy?" The single word came out sounding more like the croak of a crow but understandable.

"He's fine," John reassured him, swallowing against the unexpected rush of love and pride that Dean's first thought was of his brother. "He's with Ellen and Bill and Millie, and they're looking after him."

The boy's eyelids slipped shut and he let out a soft exhale.

"Need you to stay awake a bit longer, buddy," John said, brushing his fingers over Dean's brow. "Just long enough to eat, then you can sleep."

Dean's eyes opened again, reluctantly. In them, John could see questions. And fear. And doubt. He wondered unhappily what nightmares sleep would bring to his son when it finally claimed him. He would stay, he decided, here in the room with him, watch over him until the healing process was done.

* * *

Jim walked into the parlour, weaving his way through the clusters of furniture and books piled on the floor, nodding to Abely as the hunter turned from the window.

"We think he's going to be fine."

Abely nodded, swallowing against the relief that filled his throat. "Where's John?"

"With him," Jim said, sitting tiredly in an armchair and tipping his head back to ease the tension in his neck. "Gil's convinced that his mental and physical states are completely back to normal."

"Why didn't you tell me about Elkins, Jim?" Abely asked.

"It was a long time ago," the priest said. "And it was nobody's business but his."

"Dean making it is going to have an impact, you know."

"I was afraid of that," Jim admitted, rubbing his hands over his face as he looked at the hunter. "Elkins kicked up some?"

"It doesn't matter which way it turned out, for him," Abely said. "Not working or working, both are gonna be unacceptable."

"He's not an irrational man, Abely."

"Normally, no," Abely said, sitting down in the chair opposite the priest. "But on this … I think on this, he isn't quite sane."

They turned to the door as it opened and John walked in.

"How is he?" Jim asked, getting to his feet.

"He drank the broth," John said, swaying a little as the physical toll of the emotions of the last twenty-four hours crashed into him, grey mists crowding the edges of his vision.

"You could use food too," the priest snapped, taking a long stride forward to catch his arm and pushing him down onto the sofa. "I'll get Mae to get something."

John sat with his elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands, nodding disinterestedly.

"He'll be alright, John," Abely said quietly, moving back to the chair and sitting down. "Gil said that the cure was good. Jim confirmed it."

The expression in his friend's eyes, when John lifted his head and looked at him, took him aback.

"Abely, I – there's something I gotta talk to you about," John said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

_**July 13, 1988. Wayne, Nebraska**_

_Panting._

Hunger_._

_The light outlined the man in front of him and he could see a steady pulsing in that outline. _Da_-dum. _Da_-dum. _Da_-dum. Not breath but blood. His eyes narrowed, the pupils expanding and he saw the pulse against the base of the man's throat. Da_-dum_. Da-_dum_. Speeding up a little as the man's eyes lifted to look at him. Da_-dum_-da-_dum_. _

_For a moment, as his muscles contracted and they looked at each other, he saw anguish in the dark green eyes on the other side of the narrow trail. For a moment, he remembered that he knew this man. It was too late. He had _changed_. He had _become_. Something else. Something savage. Something … not human._

_He leapt and his eyes rolled back as the fangs tore through the man's throat, and that bright pulse shot the blood into his mouth, the taste filling him –_

Dean jerked to wakefulness, his teeth slamming together against the scream that throbbed in his chest, his hands clutching at the air. The dim quiet of the room gradually filtered through the flickering images and sounds that crashed and clanged in his mind, and he sucked in a deep breath, forcing it out and pulling in another as his heart beat slowed down, the twitch and jump of his nervous system eased.

_Turned_.

He rolled onto one shoulder, shunting aside that thought as he winced at the ache of his body, a deep soreness that seemed to radiate from his bones outward to a pervasive and all-encompassing pain through his skin. He could hardly see, and sounds seemed muffled, as if his ears were stuffed with cotton-wool. The broth the house-keeper had brought up earlier had been hot, but that had been all he could tell about it. It'd tasted of nothing in particular and had smelled bland. From his father's expression, that was a reaction that'd been limited to him.

Gil said that in the follow-up notes of the Campbells', the victims had spoken of the disorientation of the return to the normal range of their senses, of feeling blind and deaf, unable to taste or feel or smell. The disease, or curse, that a vampire's blood inflicted heightened everything as it invaded the body. It would take days for him to get used to the difference.

He hadn't had any control over the fierce and savage sensations and needs that had filled him at all. The nightmare had only shown the truth. If his father hadn't been fast enough, he would have killed him there, torn out his throat and drained his blood and then nothing could've saved him.

_Monster_.

The conscious memories were fragmented and disjointed, a kaleidoscope of colour and shape and sound patched together, lacking cohesion and meaning. He remembered his little brother's face, remembered vividly Sammy's blue-turning-to-hazel eyes widening as he'd backed away. He remembered the weight of the creature on his chest, the violet glitter of its eyes, cold blood filling his mouth. The pressure on his chest vanishing and taking a breath … and feeling the viscous liquid trickle down his throat. He remembered the thrum of the car's tyres beneath him and the crunch and popping of gravel as his father had slowed and pulled over. He remembered the agonising burn of the pain, remembered he couldn't get away from it.

Lifting a hand close to his face he could just make out that it looked normal. Nicks and healed over cuts from practising with the heavy Bowie knife his father had brought home for him, practise with machete and the long, split bamboo swords. Nails cut short, clean under the edges. It hurt to make a fist, and he forced his fingers tighter, seeing the bones shine through the thinned out skin over them.

_Everything_ hurt.

The door opened and he glimpsed a shadow against the wall, lifting his head and looking that way, eyes squinting almost shut as he tried to make out who it was.

"Just me, Dean," Jim said softly, walking to the bed and sitting in the chair beside it.

Dean felt his hand lifted, fingers uncurling as a big, warm hand enclosed it. His eyes closed as he felt a warm rush of relief, flooding through from that hand, fluxing over him. Behind it, he felt something else, complex and tangled.

"Your dad'll be up in a bit," Jim said, leaning close. "Get some sleep. I won't leave you."

The feelings blurred and dissipated, leaving him as Jim released his hand and brushed his fingers over his hair. He wanted to tell Jim that he was afraid to sleep, afraid of what came in his dreams, of what he saw and felt. The words wouldn't come out.

But something lingered of the warming comfort the priest had passed to him. Letting his eyelids fall, he wasn't aware when he slipped below consciousness, his breathing slowing to a light and steady rhythm.

* * *

John looked at the man – mentor, partner, friend – sitting opposite in the overstuffed armchair. Abely was leaning back, his head tilted slightly, the overhead light shadowing his eyes as he regarded the half-full glass of whiskey in his hands.

"Really wound yourself into a twist over this, didn't you, John?" he said quietly, one side of his mouth curling up as he lifted his gaze.

It wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting and he shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. "I –"

Leaning forward, Abely set the glass down on the small side table beside him, waving his hand dismissively at the attempt at an explanation. "Didn't Millie tell you the situation?"

"She – uh – she said that you two weren't – uh –"

"Huh, so no," Abely said, his smile widening a little as he watched John's gaze falter and slide away. "Not many of the fair sex who'll give it to you straight without tweaking the mystery. The ladies do like their drama."

He exhaled, picking up his glass and swirling the amber liquid around the bottom. "When I was a kid, we had a sweep of mumps through our region," he said. "Most everyone got through it without thinking anything of it. I was one of the lucky ones who got it bad, got it at the wrong age, and it left its mark."

John frowned, not sure where Abely was going with this seemingly unrelated recollection. Abely's mouth twisted down as he saw it.

"After puberty, in boys, sometimes the disease causes sterility," he told him bluntly. "Doc said it was it rare, but it happens. Millie knew, when we got together. Told me it didn't matter."

He swallowed the last mouthful in the glass and put it down. "It did matter, a'course. More and more as time went by. She wasn't happy and I couldn't do anything about it, and I told her she should find someone else."

"But she didn't," John guessed, looking down at the floor as he tried not to imagine the pain between the two of them.

Abely smiled, a little derisively. "No, she didn't. Told me she loved me and she couldn't see herself feeling the same way about anyone else. So, we figured out a compromise," he said, one shoulder lifting in a slight shrug. "I was on the road a lot, hunting to the south-west and gone for weeks at a time."

"That's what happened with Oran Belthorpe?"

The sharp snort was loud, slightly bitter. "Oh yeah, Oran rolled into Blue Earth a couple of years earlier, pretty much as full of himself as a young rooster," Abely told him, rubbing a hand over his brow. "Just about got himself eaten on a hunt we were on for a rugaru that popped into a population of a town over the border. He figured he'd gotten one up on me, got bent out of shape something proper when I got back to town and Millie didn't give him another glance."

He looked at John's face, seeing the transparent emotions crossing it. "With you, I think, it's different," he said slowly.

"That doesn't worry you?"

"Hell, no," Abely said. "I told you, I don't question her loyalty, John. Some women, they got more than enough love in them to go around."

John looked down at the almost-untouched glass beside him. "And if there is a child, Abely?"

Abely shrugged. "We'll figure that out when it happens."

* * *

Climbing the stairs back up to the guest room, John thought about it. With Mary, it'd been everything – heart, body and soul, given completely. They hadn't started out that way, he remembered with a slightly rueful grin as he opened the door to the room and silently slipped inside, closing it behind him, but it'd been less than three months after meeting her that he'd known for sure that she was the one he wanted to spend his life with. Raise a family with. Grow old with.

Jim nodded to him and rose from the chair as John walked to the bed.

"He's been sleeping," the priest whispered as he passed him and John sat down.

He looked at his son's face, peaceful and soft, the long dark blond lashes lying against cheeks that still held the slight roundness of childhood. The door clicked quietly as Jim left, and he leaned an elbow on the mattress, propping his head against his hand and resisting the impulse to wake Dean, just to see the green eyes clear and his boy looking out of them without anything else there.

Heat trembled along his nerves as he let himself remember the garden and Millie's skin, sliding over his. He had two children already hostage to the demon's threats, he thought, and no way of knowing what that might bring to them. He didn't know if he could cope with the idea of creating another who might be placed into that same danger.

At the same time and to be fair, Millie had given his family nothing but her steadfast love and care, and if she asked it of him, he wasn't self-deceitful enough to pretend that he wouldn't give her whatever he could, a feeling reinforced by the purely male atavistic drive to spread his genes. A child would be protected by Abely, protected and cherished and loved by all three.

_I want a big family_, Mary had said to him, the memory stealing in suddenly. She'd been curled against his side in the warm dark of their bedroom, her voice a little defiant against the fear she'd had. He'd wanted a big family as well. Neither of them had had siblings and he'd thought there would be time, time for them to have the family they'd planned.

The fear had been there because it'd taken a while for Mary to get pregnant with Dean, and a long time for Sammy. Mary hadn't said anything to him, anymore than he'd said anything to her about the months, then years that'd rolled by, punctuated by the wrapped bundles, seeping blood, in the bathroom trash every month. He'd thought later – a lot later – that maybe they'd wanted it too much, that after a while there'd been too much pressure about that unspoken fear. He didn't know. Mary had been over the moon when she'd quickened with Dean. And that had been the end of even discussing it. And he'd still thought they'd had time. And then they hadn't.

Dean shifted, brows drawing together and John looked down at him, watching the rapid movement of the boy's eyes beneath his lids, the peace gone from his face as he sucked in a deep breath and rolled sharply onto his back.

"Dean," he said, resting his hand lightly over the boy's shoulder.

He tightened the grip when Dean moaned, his legs thrashing against the covers, head turning from side to side.

"Dean, wake up."

The boy's eyes snapped open on a sharp, indrawn breath and John saw his jaw clench, his face harden as he struggled to keep it all inside. He's only _nine_, he thought helplessly. He shouldn't be having nightmares like this, not at nine. _You brought this onto them_, his dead wife's accusation wailed inside his head. _Monsters and demons and teaching them what was out there_.

He bowed his head as his hand stroked over Dean's forehead, a soft murmur of unintelligible reassurances spilling out without thought. Deep down, he knew she was right. He felt the guilt of raising them this way every moment of every day. _I can't leave them unprotected_, he told himself. _I can't leave them not knowing, able to be taken by surprise_.

But Dean had been taken by surprise. Less than a mile from his home.

"Dad?"

The hoarse croak broke through his thoughts and he looked at his son, nodding to him.

"Just a nightmare, chief," he said, swallowing against the lie of that. It was all a nightmare, and there was no _just_ about any of it. "You okay?"

Wriggling up against the pillows, Dean nodded. "Yeah."

He looked around the room, brow creasing again. "Where are we?"

For a long second, John couldn't draw a breath in, fear stabbing through him at his son's expression. He forced his lungs to expand, feeling the muscles loosen reluctantly. He told himself that the disorientation meant nothing.

"We're at Gil's," he said slowly. "In Nebraska."

"Oh," Dean said, looking back at him.

"You remember what happened, Dean?" John asked carefully, watching the expressions flicker over Dean's face.

"Uh, there was a vampire," Dean said, frowning as he tried to retrieve the memories. It was hard. They were confused, out of order, too bright, too full of _wrongness_. "At home."

"That's right," John said. "Do you remember what happened with the vampire?"

"It, um …" he started to say, then flinched violently out of his father's grip as that memory returned. Pain. Cold liquid reeking of copper and iron and salt. The taste in his mouth, over his tongue. The burning that had gone on and on.

John watched him worriedly, uncertain if he should be pushing at those memories or letting Dean bury them, forget them.

"It turned me," the boy said finally, his eyes bright when he raised them to his father's. "I'm sorry."

"Oh god, Dean," John said, his voice thickening as he leaned forward and gathered the boy in his arms, holding him tightly. "It wasn't your fault! Don't think that, not ever. You didn't do _anything_ wrong, boy."

Through the warmth of the comforting embrace, Dean felt his father's fear and pain, swallowing hard against the tumultuous emotions he couldn't separate from his own. He should've been alert, he thought, should've been on top of things, not messed up in his worry. He remembered the storm, rumbling in the distance, the heat on the fields, the airlessness in the shadows of the woods. Remembered not looking around or listening, just trudging down the trail, wrestling with conflicting thoughts, all edged in emotion he didn't understand.

"Dean," John said, his grip easing as he looked down at his son. "None of this, nothing that's happened, has been your fault, you understand me?"

His father's eyes were shining in the gloom of the bedroom, his expression almost pleading for him to believe it. Dean ducked his head and nodded, unaccountably relieved when his father pulled him close again, drowning him in a fierce surge of _protectioncaresorrowdefiance_ that pushed aside his fear and uncertainty. He felt the emotions raise walls around him. He felt _safe_.

* * *

_**July 14, 1988. Wayne, Nebraska**_

Bill looked up as the clump of boots stopped outside his office door and Trenton knocked briefly as he opened the door.

"Elkins' gone," the dour hunter said without preamble. "Belthorpe and Morton scarpered too."

"Gone up to Gil's?" Bill asked, half-rising from the chair behind the desk, his gaze skipping around the room for his shotgun.

"Nah," Trenton said, dismissively shaking his head. "Elkins' took off west. The other two were heading back for Blue Earth. Corn followed them to be sure."

Looking at him, Bill felt a spurt of relief, tempered slightly by the sour knowledge that by the time John and Jim returned to Blue Earth, there'd be a whole lot more rumours flying around the small town. "You tell Millie?"

The wraith-hunter nodded. "Lorena's taking her and the boy up to Gil's."

"Good. They can look after John's boys. Tell Lorena to bring John, Jim and Abely back with her, we need to talk about what happened in Lincoln."

"Yeah, will do," he said, looking at the big, blond man facing him a little hesitantly. "Bill, I got family down in Mississippi, should I be goin' down there and doin' something to … protect them? Lotta talk here after what happened to Lucius, folks are nervous and … seems like it's not just here neither."

Bill's gaze dropped to the desk for a moment, then he nodded. "You know if COG has reached down that far south, Trent?"

"No, don't think so," Trenton replied, his brow furrowed as he thought of the factions in the cities to the south. "My daughter tells me it's mostly the tent preachers they're seeing down there."

"Good," Bill said. "Doesn't change the situation, but that's good. Yeah, go on down and make sure they're protected, make sure they know not to trust their eyes or their friends and neighbours more'n they have to." He looked up, dark brown eyes narrowed a little. "You tell anyone who's worried about their families to do the same. Better prepared than sorry."

"Right."

Bill watched the man pull the door closed behind him and sat down again, his eyes drawn back to the map on the wall. It showed the centre of the country, and there were six cities that were now surrounded by red pins, glaring against the pale pastel rendering of the surrounding regions.

Kansas City had been an eye-opener, he thought. Under strict curfew, even the city's normal citizens were beginning to question the rule of the party they'd voted in, muttering over civil rights and people disappearing. Sometimes, he and Lorena had heard, the missing came back. Different. Not themselves. Sometimes, people had said in low, frightened voices, they didn't.

Crime – assault, murder, robbery and rape – had gone down, so far that it was virtually non-existent in the tightly controlled city. Vice had gone up, and areas that had previously been industrial, manufacturing and refining and providing employment to the citizens of the city, now filled with black-painted windows and neon signs advertising not-so-discreetly the services that could be found within. Not one book-store remained in the city limits, though they'd found an old couple running a swap-meet surreptitiously near the border. Hospitals had been closed. Schools were shut and locked.

He let out his breath tiredly. The traps of Solomon had worked.

He'd spent the better part of his life reading the mythology, the demonologies and the stories Gil or Emerson had been able to find for him. None of it had prepared him for what they'd seen. Most of the men they'd found possessed, had exorcised and sent the hellspawn back to Hell, had been dying, their bodies ridden too hard, corpulent, diseased and rotting. Those who survived couldn't speak of the experience, withdrawn into whatever recesses of their minds they'd found to hide behind and either catatonic or hysterical when the smoke had been pulled out and sent on.

And to the last one, the demons had been gleefully confident – of their indestructibility, of their return to the earthly plane. A war was coming, they'd said, jerking and dancing in the traps. A war to end all wars and Hell would be the victor.

A shiver ran up him, shaking his hand and almost spilling the whiskey in the glass he held.

He was beginning to think that his wife was right, and the Keeper had to be informed. That thought was no more pleasant than any of the others he'd entertained. And it begged the question, he thought uneasily, of why she'd been so silent with all this going on.

* * *

John watched Millie lead Sammy up the steep porch stairs, the little boy climbing quickly and running to him when he reached the top. Looking over his son's tousled head, he watched Millie lift her face to Abely, arms winding around the hunter's neck and drawing him down to kiss him. He felt a slight pang at the sight, closing his eyes and pressing his cheek against the little boy's in his arms. She'd had the right of it, he realised gradually. They both loved Abely, and the stab he felt was not for himself, but for the man standing beside him.

He opened his eyes as Lorena reached the porch, her deep voice cutting across his thoughts.

"Abely, Bill asked if you'd come back to the roadhouse, you and Jim and John," she said, glancing at him briefly before turning back. "Debrief on KC and Lincoln."

"Are the others back yet?" John asked, setting Sammy down gently.

"No." She looked past Abely to the open door as Jim came out. "A few more days."

"Where's Dean?" Sammy asked, tilting his head back to look up at his father.

"Upstairs, resting, Sammy," John answered distractedly.

"I'll take him up," Millie said quickly, reaching for Sam's hand. Her eyes met his and she stepped close to him, slipping an arm around him and pressing a soft kiss against his cheek. Desire flickered in him, distantly, and he damped it down, nodding as she moved away, leading Sammy into the house.

"What happened with Elkins and the others?" he asked Lorena, not wanting to leave the house unprotected.

"They left," she told the men shortly. "Your boys'll be safe here."

John refrained from retorting that Dean hadn't been safe within a half-mile of his own home, nodding tiredly. The house was warded, Gil and Millie were here. He and Abely would be back before dark.

"I need – I'll be back in a minute," he said, turning and walking into the house, hurrying for the stairs. He couldn't leave without checking on his son.

* * *

In the bedroom, Millie sat in the chair beside the bed; Sammy was curled up next to his brother. Dean looked up as he came in, pushing himself a little higher against the pillows, hampered by the arms wrapped around his ribs. John saw his quickly-hidden wince, Dean's head turning away.

"I'm going down to the roadhouse," he said, looking from his sons to Millie. She nodded and he caught the gleam of faint alarm in Dean's eyes and adding quickly, "Not for long."

Millie slid her hand across the covers, squeezing Dean's lightly. "Sammy and me'll be here with Dean."

John saw his son's uneasiness fade a little at her touch, and smiled, stepping closer and ruffling Sam's hair as he directed the pointed instruction to his eldest. "You get some rest."

"Yes, sir," Dean murmured automatically, his gaze slipping from his father to Millie and back. The tension that had been between them, that had been so inexplicable, so worrying, had gone.

He watched his father turn and leave, feeling only a comfortable certainty of love through his little brother's deadweight on his chest, through Millie's fingers, closed around his hand and warming it.

"You're too peaked, Dean," Millie said as the door clicked behind his father. "Abely and your father will have some jawin' to do with the others for a couple of days, and we need to get you back to normal so's we can get home as soon as they're done."

"Aw," Sammy said sleepily. "I like it here."

Dean looked at her gratefully as she peeled his brother away, contradicting Sammy gently. "It's a good place to visit, Sammy, but it's not home. Come on, let's go see Mae about getting your brother some real food."

* * *

"We found the same thing in Lincoln, not so entrenched yet … but yeah, there were a lot of folks disappearing," Abely said, looking at Bill.

"Would the Keeper know?" Ellen asked, looking from Bill to Jim. "If a Gate had been opened?"

"A Gate's been opened alright," Jim said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Question now is – how many more has it opened?"

"Gates need blood," Bill said abruptly. "A lot of blood."

"And folks are disappearing," Darby said softly, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Ellen. "Keeper should've told _us_ these things, been setting us to work, a long time before it got this bad."

John looked at the faces surrounding the table. "Is that true?"

"That's her job," Ellen said, turning to look at Bill. "If something happened to her, why didn't a new Keeper rise? I thought it happened automatically?"

"Maybe she's not dead," Jim suggested, leaning on his elbow.

"Not dead and not doin' her job doesn't help us one way or t'other," Darby argued unhappily. "Someone's going to have to take a look."

Abely nodded, glancing at John. "Soon as Bobby and the rest are back, and we know what's happening south, we'll go. We'll need the consensus of the Council."

"They'll be here," Lorena promised, lifting her chin and leaving no doubt in the others watching her that they would be, even if she had to drag them all here herself. "Can we afford to wait for the rest?"

"We can't afford not to," Jim said firmly. "At the moment, it's clear that we're going to have strategise a lot more effectively. The demons are talking of war, here. And Darby's right. People are disappearing and there are a lot of demons walking around now, which begs the logical supposition that at least one Gate has been opened. We can't afford to lose our people by going in half-cocked."

"But we don't think these COG cells are actually opening the way, do we?" Ellen asked, the overhead light shadowing her eyes. "I mean, the demons took advantage of them being around, the party didn't open the way?"

"Seems that way," Abely said slowly. "The first demon might've let the others through but it wasn't until the organisation started to get into power on its own that we saw more of them."

"Consent must be given, the laws are clear about that," Bill added. John looked at him.

"I thought the law said that the demons couldn't come onto this plane of existence?" he questioned truculently, feeling as if nothing that he'd learned so far was strong enough to hold on to.

Bill ducked his head. "True enough."

"Will this … Keeper … know why that law was able to be broken?" John asked, looking from Bill to Jim. "If it was supposed to be unbreakable?"

"Maybe," Jim hedged uneasily.

* * *

_**July 15, 1988.**_

Caleb looked around the room with undisguised interest.

"Paint a picture, lasts longer," Dean told him disparagingly.

The older boy turned back and grinned at him. "Never been past the front hall in this house, Winchester, cut me some slack."

The grin faded as he studied the younger boy. "You really got turned, huh?"

Dean looked away. He didn't get a sense from Caleb that it'd changed the way he thought about him, other than an overwhelming curiosity to know what it'd been like. But it raised the spectre that'd begun to haunt him about the other kids, the other people in the town.

"I got cured," he said, almost curtly. "Doesn't that count?"

Caleb shook his head. "It's not like that, man. Most of the folks don't know about Elkins, hell, I wouldn't know if Moses hadn't been here, back then. They heard all that crap that Belthorpe and Morton were spouting, most of it misquoted from Elkins anyway and just swallowed it, not even thinking about the truth. Miz Harvelle's going through a process of re-education. She says it just takes time for the rumour mills to process it all."

Dean chewed on the corner of his lip uncertainly. By the time he got home, he'd be more of a pariah in the small town than he already was. It didn't matter, he figured Hum and Mick would ignore most of what they heard. The rest didn't count.

"What's going on out there?"

Caleb shrugged, relieved to let go of that topic. He didn't know how to describe the paranoia of most of the hunters in town, closed-minded in a fear that didn't need a basis. "Most of the hunters are back. They're closeted in Bill's office, breakfast to supper time. No one knows what they're talking about for sure, but I overhead Moses tell Lorena that Abely and your dad are going to find the Keeper."

Dean frowned. "The who?"

"The Keeper," Caleb repeated, brows rising at Dean's non-comprehending expression. "Dude, you are seriously uneducated."

The frown deepened to a scowl. "Then freakin'-well educate me!"

"The Keeper's the Chosen One," Caleb said, leaning closer. "The one who keeps watch on all the planes and tells the hunters if things are going to hell."

Dean felt his brows rise. "Things _are_ going to hell, why hasn't this Keeper said anything about it?"

"Apparently, there's something wrong," Caleb said, his face screwing up. "They're not talking it about much but we should've been told about the demons when the first one showed up, and they're worried."

Dean turned that over and filed it away. He might be able to find out more from his father, or Abely or even Jim. "So, this Keeper – who is he? What does he do?"

Caleb's gaze cut away uncomfortably. "It's Council stuff. I know that none of the hunters know who the Keeper is going to be, until it happens. The Keepers live for hundreds of years, usually. A new one is Chosen when they die."

"They're not human?"

"Yeah, they are, born human and become hunters, like everyone else, but when they're Chosen they change, stop ageing, start having visions …" he said, trailing away as he reached the end of what he knew for sure. "I don't know that much about it."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

The silence stretched out between the two boys for a few minutes, Dean lost in his thoughts and how he could possibly find out more when he got home, Caleb sneaking glances at the younger boy's face, still slightly hollowed out, cheekbones and jawline and temples sharper-edged, more prominent.

"Dean," he ventured, unable to contain the need to know any longer. "What'd it feel like?"

Dark green eyes focussed on him. "It hurt."

Caleb laughed uncomfortably. "That it?"

The long exhale was loud in the silence of the room as Dean studied his friend. "It was confusing," he said after a moment. "Everything was too bright, too loud, the colours were all wrong –" He stopped, a sudden vivid memory of the sun flashing into his mind's eye. It'd been violet. He shook his head. "It burned – all the time – and it wasn't me, deciding what to do. It was something else."

The hunger, he thought. Almost a separate entity, it'd driven everything.

"What about the cure?" Caleb asked diffidently, his head tilting as he looked sideways at the younger boy.

"I don't remember much about that," Dean lied smoothly. "Dad said I was out of it when we got here, then the-the, uh, process, knocked me out again." He rubbed his throat reflexively. "It hurt too, when I woke up."

"Moses said Elkins was twisted up because the cure didn't work on his wife. She didn't feed but she wasn't, um, sane, afterwards and he had to kill her."

Dean blinked at him. It explained Gil's daily questions, he thought, the pieces dropping into place. His father's sudden worry, when he'd woken and couldn't remember what'd happened. Mae's wariness when she brought him food. They were waiting for him to lose his mind. He looked at Caleb.

"You think I'm going nuts?" he asked him bluntly.

"I think you've always been nuts, Winchester," Caleb said with a slight grin. "Wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Whatta pal."

"At your service." The grin widened for a moment then fell away. "When do you get out of here?"

"Tomorrow, I think," Dean said, looking back at the window. The curtains were open, the late afternoon sunshine coming in obliquely, lighting up the armoire and the rich details of the painting on the wall. He could see without squinting. Could hear again, even the faintest noises registering, finally. He was still sore, a little. His father said that would work out with exercise. He was still sleeping a lot. Nine, sometimes ten hours a night.

They turned as the door opened and Millie came in, holding a tray and smiling at them. "Caleb, Moses is downstairs waiting for you, honey."

She set the tray on the side of the bed as Caleb leaned forward, hand extended. Dean took it, Caleb's longer fingers closing tightly around his. No trace of fear or uneasiness in the grip, Dean realised, feeling his chest loosen at the knowledge. He still had a friend.

"I'll catch you around, Winchester," Caleb told him lightly.

"Yeah, be good," Dean said, matching his tone.

"I'll be careful," Caleb tossed back at him in response, pivoting on the ball of his foot and walking out.

"How're you feeling?" Millie asked, moving the tray over him.

"Alright," Dean said, looking down at the plates hungrily, then back up at her as she straightened. "We leaving tomorrow?"

"Looks like," Millie said. "First thing."

"Good."

She smiled at him and gestured to the food. "Mae just about pitched a fit at the very thought of making those, threatened me with hellfire at the suggestion, so eat them before they get cold."

He lifted the domed silver lid and grinned down at the split round rolls, topped with salad and a thick round of charred ground meat, glistening with pale golden strips of fried onions and home-made tomato conserve.

* * *

_**July 17, 1988. Minnesota.**_

_He stood in a field of marsh grass, the silver-green stalks hip-high and bending and bowing with a capricious and wandering breeze that stalked its way over the flat land. In front of him, the house had been built on stilts, seemingly propped up on one side by a huge beech that towered over it, the window panes reflecting the morning sun, mirrored eyes, showing nothing of what lay inside._

_Walking closer, he frowned as the daylight dimmed, the bright blue of the sky above fading abruptly to a greyish mauve and the sunshine disappearing. The wind picked up and around him, the grass hissing as it bowed deeper, eddies gleaming silver against the dulled green._

_On the high porch, his father was waving at him, and he waded through the grass, feeling the ground softening beneath his feet, the soil gleaming with moisture, sucking at his boots. He could see a path, wooden boards raised above the swampy ground and he headed for it, ducking his head as the wind blew harder against him, pushing at him now, plucking at his clothes and smearing them flat, backing and turning._

_Reaching the boardwalk, he clambered up onto it and looked down at his boots. They were coated ankle-high in dark brown mud. It dripped and fell off onto the weathered, silvery boards as he walked toward the house, leaving a trail. Heavy drops of rain began to fall and he walked faster, pulling his coat collar up as they hit him, spotting the leather and his jeans, darkening the timber slats of the path to charcoal._

_He glanced up at the house and started to run, the rain pelting down now, soaking him through, dripping from his hair and eyelashes and chin. His father was still standing on the porch, waving furiously at him. In a window on the second story, a face appeared, indistinct behind the water sheeting down the glass, pale and framed in fiery red, the features little more than dark shadows. He stopped, staring at the window and the face disappeared._

"_Dean!" His father shouted above the noise of the rain hitting the fields, hammering the wooden boardwalk._

"Dean," Millie said, her arm around his shoulders, tightening slightly as he jerked awake. "You okay?"

The car was warm and dry. He could feel Sammy's head, heavy and unmoving on his leg, his cheek resting against Millie's side. The engine growled softly and the tyres were crunching over gravel, an occasional ping from rocks thrown up at the undercarriage adding an arrhythmic beat. In the front seat, his father was still, concentrating on the road. Beside John, head tipped back and a soft, whistling snore issuing from his nose, Gil was asleep, his golden hair spilling over the seat back.

"What?" He looked up at Millie, straightening as much as Sammy's weight would allow, aware that his leg was numb. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," he said, replaying her question as he looked around. "Where are we?"

"Not far from home," she said quietly. "You were … moving around a little, did you have a bad dream?"

"No," he said, closing his eyes as the memory of the dream came back to him. "Not – not a bad dream." A _weird_ dream, he thought.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

_**July 20, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Dean looked around the bedroom as if seeing it for the first time. He'd thought it would feel different, thought it would feel safe. It was just a bedroom, he realised uncomfortably. The bed stood under the tall window, sunshine spilling through the panes to cross-hatch the plain white and blue coverlet. To either side, nightstands stood like sentinels, holding a lamp to the left and the small, polished timber chest Jim had given him on the right. Turning slightly, his gaze drifted disinterestedly over the bureau's flat top, a half-dozen toys arranged there, all of them looking babyish to his eyes now.

It was just a room, no longer a sanctuary. He didn't know how to feel about that.

Walking to the desk, he picked up the sheet-metal windup car from the shelf above the writing surface, turning it over in his hands, unable to recall, exactly, why it had been a favourite. Sammy loved it, had coveted it from the first moment he'd seen his big brother wind it up and set it down. It screamed like a banshee when it was wound up tight and let go, racing and bouncing over the gravel drive at speeds that were impossible, proportionally speaking, for a full-sized car to go. Maybe that was why it was failing to catch his feelings now, he thought.

They'd been back for a day, and already he knew that Stan and Ricky had made sure everyone in the village knew exactly what had happened. Had happened to him. Walking down the crooked, narrow streets in the warm twilight the previous evening, he'd seen the looks on people's faces, avidly curious but frightened at the same time, mothers drawing their children aside as he'd passed.

_Monster_.

He'd felt his little brother's grip tighten on his hand and had known that Sammy'd seen those looks too. Maybe not understanding it all, not yet, but still seeing them. Coming home, he'd pushed the feelings aside, refused to give them mental room and had pinned a grin on his face when he'd come through the front door, feeling the eyes of Abely and his father and Millie on him, knowing they were looking for any sign that he was hurting, inside, aching with the burden of being different. They'd watched him for a while and he'd made it through dinner and escaped afterwards, claiming a weariness he hadn't felt.

Hum had apologised, when he'd seen him in the grocer's, a hurried, secretive apology between the aisles of sugar and cereals and the methane-powered deep freezers holding ice-cream and meat. Something about his mother and what she'd heard and how it would blow over, everyone would forget but for now it was just better not to rock the boat.

Rock the boat, he thought, staring at the metal car in his hands. Don't rock the boat.

But he had. He'd rocked it hard.

His hand tightened around the car and he left the room, walking down to his brother's bedroom.

Sammy looked up from the game he was playing on the floor as he came in.

"Here," Dean said, handing him the car.

The little boy took it reverently, his gaze flashing up to Dean's, eyes wide. "This is your favourite."

"You can have it." Dean shrugged, turning back to the door.

"Dean …" Sammy said, very softly, and he turned around, seeing the big hazel eyes filled with doubt, knowing exactly where it came from.

"S'alright, Sammy, I – I'm just too old for it now," he told him.

* * *

Thunder muttered in the distance and Jim saw the horizon flicker with light. Storm would be through before morning, he thought, turning back to the room and looking at the four men and one woman sitting there. An apt metaphor.

Emerson sat in one armchair, chestnut-bright hair receding from his forehead, gathered into a pony-tail with a dark green ribbon at the nape of his neck, dark grey eyes wide behind the fine, gold-wire frame glasses. On the sofa, John and Abely sat side by side, both men looking tired and drawn. At the table, Mina's burgundy hair gleamed in the lamp-light, her head bowed over the ledger in front of her, a glass of brandy beside her elbow. And in the other armchair, Gillette sprawled, his long, pale fingers fiddling with the lenses of his spectacles, cherubic face still and serious as he listened.

"The traps worked," Emerson said, tapping his pipe on the edge of the table absently. "And, for the moment, Lincoln and Kansas City have been, well, exorcised, for lack of a better term."

"'For the moment' being the operative phrase," Mina countered tartly, the brandy in her glass matching the silk of her skirt precisely as she lifted the snifter and the light hit it. "There is a Gate, Emerson, and our first priority should be finding and closing it."

"I'm utterly agog to hear your proposal for achieving that very worthy goal, Mina," the legacy said, his indulgent smile not quite reaching his eyes. She glared at him over the rim of her glasses.

"What about Moira?" Jim diverted the response he could see the woman formulating, looking at Emerson. "She had a gift for feeling disturbances along the joins."

"Moira was killed, three weeks ago," Mina told him, her voice clipped and harsh. "We don't yet know all the circumstances."

"Murdered?" Abely leaned forward in his chair, brows drawn tightly together. "By what?"

"'What' is the question," Emerson said, letting out a deep exhale. "We don't know."

"Have any of the children manifested their mother's Sight?" Jim asked, settling himself into a chair at the table. "Moira said it had always passed down the female line."

"We don't know that either," Mina said, pushing a stray lock of hair back from her temple with a sharp, frustrated gesture. "Iain disappeared, took them with him. We haven't been able to find them."

"And what do we do when we find the Gate?"

John turned to look at Gil. The lanky inventor had been silent throughout most of the conversation, watching and listening. He put his spectacles on, pushing them up his nose, put the half-full snifter of brandy down on the table and stood, looking around at the faces watching him, the light picking up the golden-grey of his magnified irises.

"Every single that has happened has been unprecedented," he began, his wide-legged, bottle-green trousers flapping around his legs as he walked around the sofa. "And you've established that it began in 1972, with the murder at the convent," he directed to Emerson, who nodded.

"Something let a powerful demon through or a demon of extraordinary power found a way through itself," Gil said, pacing back and forth across the room. "Powerful enough to be able a Gate. Why didn't the demons flood through then? Even now, we're only seeing a tiny fraction of what could've come through."

"Gates don't stay open, Gil," Mina said, her eyes following him. "Every one will close if the sacrifice is not kept going."

"Precisely," Gil said, stopping abruptly and pointing a finger at her. "Why would this demon murder a priest and nuns in a location that has never been mapped for a Gate?"

"The order doesn't have the location of eve–" Mina began to argue and Gil held up his hand to forestall her.

"No, it's possible that there is a Gate there and we missed it, but nine people, even from a convent, is not a sufficient amount of blood to open a Gate and you know that," he said.

"You're suggesting that this demon has another agenda?" Emerson leaned back in the chair and tamped tobacco into the pipe bowl.

"I am suggesting that we need to ask why a demon, strong enough to punch a hole into this world, would be pussy-footing around with a few demons here, and a few there," Gil said, shaking his head. "With searching out families, and attacking them, for no earthly or unearthly reason that we can ascertain."

"And why," he said softly, looking down at the floor and drawing in a deep breath. "the Keeper has not been in contact, despite all that has been happening."

Abely turned to look at Mina. "Did you find her yet?"

"Yes, she's in Wisconsin," Mina said, drawing out a map from her piles of notes. "North of Green Bay, by the lake."

"We'll go tomorrow." Abely looked at John, and he nodded.

"She can't be dead," Jim said, lifting a brow at Emerson.

"No, another would've shown the Signs if she was," the scholar confirmed, rising from the chair as he lit his pipe. "As Gil said, this is as unprecedented as everything else, even for the order. A fresh pair of eyes would help with the research, Gil, if you're staying."

Gillette nodded. "As long as I can."

"John, I need to talk to you," Mina said quietly as Emerson walked to the hall, followed by Jim and Gil.

He got up, going to the table and sitting opposite her.

"The boys should begin their training in the order, now, while they're still young enough to absorb the knowledge easily. At least Dean," she said, closing the files in front of her and lifting her head, green eyes peering over her half-moon glasses.

"The order? Why?" John glanced around for Abely, but the hunter had left the room as well.

"Didn't Abely tell you?" she asked, brows rising in surprise. "Or Jim?"

"Tell me what?" he asked, feeling his ears heat slightly at the tone of her voice.

"Your father – John, you should have been initiated into the order as a child, your father was a member and the legacy right runs in your family," Mina said, a crease appearing between her fine, dark brows as she looked at him.

"My father?" John sat back in the chair, shaking his head. "My father was a mechanic – in Lawrence."

"Your step-father was," she asserted. "Your real father was a legacy of the order, an Initiate who was about to become an Associate when he disappeared."

"My real father died when I was four," John said doggedly. "There's a headstone in Stull Cemetery you could visit, if you want proof."

"A headstone marking an empty grave," Mina corrected him, gesturing toward the hall, her slight scowl deepening. "We brought the histories, you can read them for yourself. I told Emerson we should have made you stay longer when you saw us at the store," she added peevishly, mostly to herself. "The order is a part of your history, John, and that of your sons."

"My sons are already too involved," he grated argumentively, his voice dropping slightly as the familiar guilt rose with the admission.

"They are," Mina agreed. "So, do you give them everything or do you leave them partly in the dark, susceptible to things that they might have been able to avoid if they knew it all?"

"What are you talking about, exactly? You want them to become like you? You and Emerson? Legacies?"

"That is their birthright, if they choose it," she said. "But that decision is theirs, when they reach their maturity, John. The initial training is focussed on knowledge, on an understanding of the order and what we do, on research and a widening of the mind."

"How much time will it take away from their schoolwork?" he asked her, wondering if they would be any safer, studying with the legacies.

"If you agree, then they will come to us for their schooling," she told him. "We will not neglect the necessary foundations of a classical education."

"Aren't you both kind of busy right now?"

She smiled at the sardonic tone of his voice, looking down at the table. "We've contacted another chapter. The boys could go to them."

"Go to them?" John shook his head. "Go where?"

"Oregon."

"No." The answer was immediate and without thought, his ears prickling furiously in alarm and a thread of ice worming its way through his gut at the idea. "No, they stay with me."

"John –"

"No!" John said vehemently. "They're staying here."

"I can give them some training here," Mina said reluctantly. "But it wouldn't be the same as letting them go to –"

"It'll have to be enough."

"They would be safe there," she said quietly, looking down at his hands. They were trembling against the warm, polished wood of the table top with the strength of his feelings.

John's brows rose at her. "There's nowhere safe, Mina. Not now, not for the foreseeable future. They're staying with me."

"You're hunting half the time," she argued, a slight edge to her voice. "And you could go with them. It's your birthright as well."

"I don't have time to sit and study your order, Mina! I have to find that demon, before he finds me, before he finds _them_. I have to be ready, can't you understand that?" He got to his feet abruptly, the chair falling over behind him, his eyes, shadowed beneath his brows, fixed on her.

"I do understand it," she told him, her voice dropping to a soothing murmur. "We all do, John. We'll do our best here, but you must understand –"

"You can do what you can," he cut her off, hands closing into fists. "The boys stay here. When I'm not around, or Abely, Jim and Millie will look after them."

* * *

He was hot and he couldn't take his eyes off a fat robber fly, batting helplessly against the glass of the window. It sounded like a bee, buzzing and humming as it repeatedly hit the pane.

"Mr Winchester, are you with us?" Mr Alleyn's voice had a similar, rasping timbre as the noise of the fly and Dean looked around slowly, refocussing on the teacher, realising belatedly that the small class in the sun-filled schoolroom were all looking at him.

"Yes, sir?"

"The answer, if you please?" Alleyn asked, one brow cocked in expectation.

He replayed his last memory of the teacher's voice, the droning intonation hard to separate from the droning of the fly. Alleyn expected him to flounder, he thought, had seen his distraction and was anticipating his humiliation. His jaw set unconsciously as he refused to give the teacher that satisfaction. "Uh, in the first four generations of a new werewolf line, the creatures are not limited by the state of the moon, and can control transformation by will."

"Very good," Alleyn said acerbically, his eyes narrowed. He turned away and looked at the rest of the children. "Class, that concludes the lesson. I suggest that you pack your bags quickly and quietly and enjoy the rest of the day."

The classes took a couple of hours a day, in the early afternoons. Dean thought it was a waste of time with the summer sunshine flooding through the big windows and making everyone too drowsy to remember what they were supposed to be learning. Lore on the creatures, occasionally a bit about the mythology of the other planes, a couple of times interesting lectures on the weapons used for hunting different monsters and how they were made. That kind of lesson didn't happen nearly often enough to make the rest worthwhile, he decided, yawning as he got to his feet.

"Missing your coffin? Must be hard to be up in the daylight, Winchester" Stan said to him as he passed, mouth curled into a self-congratulatory smirk as the kids within hearing laughed.

"Your old man still leaving skidmarks in his drawers when he's hunting?" Dean snapped back, shoving his books in his bag and walking out past Stan as the older boy turned beet-red amidst a louder burst of laughter.

Cheap shot, he thought, kicking at the gravel on the road home. Too easy and not aimed at the right Belthorpe. It'd been the first thing he'd thought of, and he was getting tired of the vampire jokes.

At the crossroads near Jim's church, he almost turned to go down to the river, then hesitated, memory stirring of violet eyes, glittering above him. He was supposed to see Mina anyway, he thought, veering back to the church gate and walking up the path. Something about the order's training.

Jim opened the vaulted wooden door, smiling easily as he stood aside to let Dean pass by.

"Where's Sammy?"

Dean looked back at him. "At home, with Millie," he said, brow creasing as he wondered if he'd forgotten something. "Dad didn't say anything about Sammy."

Jim nodded. "Well, Mina's down in the crypt, take the stairs from the sacristy."

"Should I go and get him?" Dean asked, worried now.

"No," Jim said, shaking his head. "You go on down, I'll check with Millie later about Sam."

Turning away with a feeling of uncertainty, Dean followed the priest's directions, feeling the temperature drop as he walked down the stairs, the underground rooms much cooler, a faint air moving through them.

The red-haired legacy looked up as he walked into the long, narrow room, her chair scraping on the stone-flagged floor as she pushed it back.

"Have a seat, Dean," Mina said, getting to her feet and gesturing to a chair at the wooden table. "Do you want a drink? Mrs Parker made up some lemonade." She didn't wait for an answer, going to the small sideboard against the interior wall where a jug of pale yellow liquid sat, moisture condensing in fat droplets and running down the sides. He knew Uncle Jim's house-keeper. She made great lemonade, not too sweet, enough of the lemon's sour to make it refreshing.

"Uh, sure, thanks," Dean said, dropping his bag and looking around the room. At the other end, a set of double doors were closed, but he could just hear the murmur of voices beyond them. The basement rooms had been built of stone, and the cool, grey blocks were smooth, fitted tightly together. Rough shelving had been built around the walls, holding books and scrolls and manuscripts. He looked up as Mina set a tall glass beside him.

"Did your father tell you what you'll be doing here, Dean?" she asked him as she walked back to her chair and sat down.

"No," Dean said, wiping his mouth after the first deep swallow. "Uh, Uncle Jim asked where Sammy was – is he supposed to be here too?"

"Not yet, he's a little young for this," she said, looking down at the books piled up beside her. "What do you know of the order?"

Dean looked at her, shrugging slightly. "Not much. No one really talks about it."

"With good reason," she said, smiling at him. "We've existed for more than fifteen hundred years, in secret, collecting and harbouring the knowledge of … well, let's just call it the dark side of the world."

He took another sip of the lemonade, watching her over the rim of the glass.

"Originally, the order was formed by a number of men, who had been given a message. To find the truth of the mythology, of legends and folk-lore, of magic, black and white and neutral, of the artefacts that were cursed and those that were blessed, to be the guardians of that knowledge, and to train and give it to the people who needed it, in times of chaos, and great evil," Mina said, watching him as he watched her. "Can you imagine how much the order knows, how much we've gathered and sifted and hidden away, after fifteen hundred years, Dean?"

"Not really, no," he answered, not sure if the question was rhetorical or not. She was trying to impress him, he thought, but he couldn't work out why.

"You're here because the legacies, those of us who work for the order, are from the handful of bloodlines that swore an oath to the search for the truth in the past," she told him, her eyes narrowing fractionally behind the half-moon glasses perched on her nose. They were the same colour as his father's, he thought, a little distractedly.

"The Winchesters have always been in the order," Mina continued, and he blinked, thinking of his father, a crease appearing between his brows as he looked at her.

"Your grandfather was Henry Winchester. He disappeared, a long time ago, when your father was only four years old." Mina pushed a book toward him, and Dean looked down at the cover, a deep brown leather, worn and polished with handling. In gold foil, his family's name was stamped in the centre. Under it, a set of dates. 1850-1983. He looked up at her, his hand creeping across the table to touch the edge of the book.

"It's your history," she said, her gesture inviting him to open it. "Read it. It will tell you more than I could about your family and their place with us."

Dean lifted the thick, heavy binding. The pages were a creamy parchment, the writing a decisive and densely black copperplate hand. He pulled the book closer and leaned over the page, reading.

_1850._

_Jeremiah Jameson Winchester, born in Charlotte, North Carolina, migrated with his family to Pittsburgh in 1855, driven by the increasing pressure on the South from the northern States on the slavery that drove the economy of the time. His father, Jonathan Henry, knew that war was coming and his first loyalty was to the order, to the training of his two sons in an environment where war could not interfere …_

History had never been of interest. Dean sat and read, oblivious to the passing of time, of the lemonade in his glass warming, the beads of moisture evaporating gradually, of the growls of his stomach, demanding food, of Mina moving around the room, of Emerson and Gil passing by.

* * *

"Dean."

He looked up, eyes refocussing on the man standing beside him. "Uncle Jim?"

"It's nine, son, time to go home," Jim said gently, placing a purple silk ribbon along the page Dean had been reading and closing the book. "Millie wants you to have some dinner."

Looking down at the book, Dean nodded, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet.

"I'll walk back with him," Gil said as Jim stepped toward the crypt stairs. "I need the fresh air to clear my head."

The two men looked at each other, and Dean saw Jim's slight nod. "Give Millie my best."

He followed the lanky inventor up the stairs and through the dimly-lit church, feeling his chest expand, the sore muscles of his neck relax as he breathed in the cool night air, redolent with the scents of the fields and the garden. In the eastern quarter of the sky, the moon sailed, throwing a pale light over the landscape, enough to see his way.

"You wanted to talk to me?" he asked Gil and heard the man's soft laugh in the shadow of the church porch.

"Not much gets by you, does it, Dean?" Gil said, his voice warm. "Yes, I wanted to ask if you've had any headaches, or any physical debilitations."

"No, sir," Dean answered, honestly enough.

"Have you perceived any changes at all? Emotionally? Mentally?" Gil turned to look at him, and Dean saw the flash of moonlight from the round lenses of his spectacles.

"No," he said. It wasn't anything, he thought. Nothing that could be counted as a change exactly. He felt _more_, sometimes. Sensed things, sometimes. That wasn't much. Nothing for anyone to worry about.

"Good, good," Gil said, following the path unerringly to the garden lych-gate, the squeak of the rusted hinges loud as he pushed it open.

"What happened to Mr Elkin's wife, Gil?"

Gil slowed and Dean felt his reluctance to talk of it, to think of it.

"We didn't have the vampire's blood," he said and his deep voice was filled with a regret at the memories. "We didn't even know at the time that it was a vital component. The hunger was stilled and most of the process was reversed, but the mental connection, that never disappeared and - and she could … hear things … and she felt things, sensed things … and it drove her mad."

Dean stumbled in the long grass beside the path, catching himself before he fell, the beat of his heart pounding in his ears.

"But, we had the blood, so the cure worked on me?" he asked, barely able to hear the sound of his voice over the insistent thunder of his pulse.

"Yes. Yes, with you, the cure was complete," Gil said firmly, glancing around at him as they reached the house. "And you haven't felt anything out of the ordinary, which is the best possible indication that everything worked as it should."

Dean nodded, following him to the broad stone porch and through the tall French doors.

_Worked as it should_, he thought. It all _worked as it should_. He wasn't different. Wasn't _changed_. It'd all _worked _as it_ should_.

"There you are," Millie's voice broke through his thoughts and he looked up, forcing a smile onto his face as she beamed at him.

"Dinner's keeping hot, I'll get you a plate, Dean," she said, turning to Gil. "You'll have a bite, and keep us company?"

"Where's Sammy?" Dean asked.

"In bed, sound asleep," Mille said over her shoulder, taking Gil's silence as assent. "Take Gil to the dining room, Dean. I won't be a moment."

He walked through the big living room, weaving his way automatically through the furniture and the odds and ends of Abely's experimentation with the armour and weapons that he was forever tinkering with, searching for improvements, hearing Gil's footsteps behind him.

The dining room was set for three, and Dean sat down, staring at the tablecloth.

"Are you all right, Dean?" Gil asked, his voice quiet.

He looked up, nodding. "Just thinking about the – the, uh, history of the order," he lied, the memory of what he'd been reading flooding back, pushing aside the other thoughts. "Hard to believe."

Gil smiled. "Some parts of it, very," he agreed. He leaned forward, elbows akimbo on the table. "You can learn all you can from it, Dean, but you don't have to follow in your grandfather's footsteps. Being a legacy is not an easy path to follow, nor is it suited to all."

Dean absorbed that, wondering what had prompted the disclosure. Gil seemed to be speaking from some kind of personal experience.

"Here we are," Millie said, coming through the dining room door with three plates balanced on her arms. "And you can tell Mina that if the study is going to involve these sorts of hours, I would appreciate it if Dean could bring the books back here, and do his reading in the comfort of his home rather than trekking across the fields at all hours."

Gil ducked his head, glancing at Dean from under his brows, a conspiratorial smile curving his mouth high on the side that Millie couldn't see.

"I'll be sure to pass that along, my dear," he said.

* * *

_**WI-22 E, Wisconsin**_

John looked at the road through the windshield, repressing the urge to use the wipers to remove the bug-splats that were rapidly narrowing his field of vision to a few square inches. All they did, even with the water sprayed with them, was to turn the millions of dots into an uneven and opaque smear. That one he'd learned from experience.

"Mina said you knew about my father," he said to Abely, and heard the other man's deep sigh.

"Jim knew about it," Abely admitted. "From Emerson, I guess. Didn't seem like you were interested in your history, John. You never talked about your father, hardly talked about your childhood."

John chewed on the inside of his cheek as he recognised the truth of that. The man who'd become his father had been straightforward, not stupid by any means, but Ed had preferred to see life in black and white, rather than shades of grey, and he hadn't welcomed unanswerable questions about the past. His mother had never spoken of her first husband, and somehow he hadn't been able to bring himself to ask, not even when he'd signed up for service. He thought she'd preferred Ed's lack of curiosity to her son's need to know.

"I – uh, I learned not to ask," he said, his voice only slightly louder than the noise of the tyres over the rough road.

Thinking back through those memories, he realised that, over time, he had learned to do exactly that. To accept what he saw, to stop thinking of what could be, to fit himself into the world no matter how that might have contorted him. He wondered uncomfortably how much of that he'd passed onto his son.

Clearing his throat, he flicked a sideways glance at his partner. "So, without the mumbo-jumbo, you were going to tell me about the Keeper?"

Abely made a noise in his throat and straightened up against the passenger door. "Yeah, right. Alright, this is what I know," he said, eyes half-closing as he spoke. "Back in the day, and I mean way back, when demons and angels were walking around, creating merry hell for most of humanity on earth, the order began to recruit hunters."

His eyes popped open. "Don't get me wrong, there were always hunters, since before language, or the written word, or people livin' in groups bigger than a family or tribe, but at this time, the order decided that they needed hunters who could do more than just stick their necks out to save the people under their protection, hunters who could take the fight to the source."

John huffed and Abely smiled. "Yeah, well, they didn't have much of an idea back then of how big the problem could be, but you could say, their hearts were in the right place." He ran a hand over his jaw absently. "In any case, they started to train hunters. They tested them and they found the best, the ones who'd survived long enough to get their own knowledge and lore pretty much bedded down, and they taught them about everything they'd learned, got right into the weapon-making and using those weapons, combat, strategy, the works. And these hunters were the vanguard an' they went out an' sorted out the demons and the angels and the half-breeds and somehow, no one knows how exactly, they got the Gates sealed and locked."

"Which should leave us with no problem at all," John commented dryly.

"Yeah," Abely said, nodding. "One of the hunters was a man who had a bit of the Sight," he said, looking over at John. "You know what that is?"

"In Celtic tradition, psychic power," John said. Abely nodded.

"Right, not just Celtic, a'course, but yeah, primarily the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh. This man, he could see the edges of the planes, where they joined together. Could do a lot of stuff, if you believe the Council's history about him. He became the first Keeper, kind of a watchdog for the order and the hunters, someone who could see trouble in the distance."

"How'd he manage the immortality thing?"

"Well, the Council says he used a spell. He wouldn't age as long as he was the Keeper," Abely told him, his voice holding a slight edge.

"But he could be killed?" John guessed, his eyes narrowing as he watched the road.

"Yeah, he could be killed," Abely confirmed. "The spell had a knock-on effect, 'cos when that man died, another hunter began to get visions, and the power of not only the Sight but the immortality was transferred to them."

"No choice in the matter?"

"Didn't seem like it," Abely said. "At that time, it was a great honour, an' all of that."

"Unless you didn't want the honour."

He heard a snort beside him. "Yeah, unless that."

"And the Council?" John asked. He'd been hearing about the Council for years now, but he couldn't work out how it worked, since none of the hunters he knew seemed to be on it.

"The Council was formed by the first Keeper, as a kind of liaison, I guess you'd call it, with the hunters and with the order. There are thirteen members –"

John frowned. "Like a coven?"

"I guess, yeah, it's a number with a power of its own." Abely shrugged. "Anyway, that Council has carried on from then to now. The members are chosen once every thirteen years, voted in secret ballot by every hunter and every order legacy, initiate and associate. No one knows who'll end up sitting on it. Most of us don't know who's on it, even now."

"Is Lorena a member?"

The older man nodded. "She'll round them up, get them to make a decision on getting everyone together, to fight this."

"Gil said something about closing the Gate, if we ever located it," John said uneasily. "How do we do that?"

"Ah, that's Jim's department," Abely said, smiling slightly. "He's the only one who ever has."

"He has? How'd he do it?"

"You'll have to pour a couple of quarts of Irish whiskey down his throat to get an answer to that, John," Abely laughed. "Keeps it very close to the chest, does our Jim."

He looked through the windshield and tapped John's arm. "Turnoff's coming up, about eighty yards."

They were driving through countryside that was utterly black, the last town had been more than thirty miles behind them, and even that had been a small one.

"How does she live out here, so far from everyone?" he asked.

"Doesn't like company," Abely answered with a shrug. "Apparently, that's a part and parcel of the spell and the job."

* * *

_**Shore of Lake Michigan, Wisconsin**_

The black car pulled in front of the small cabin, headlights flashing over the exterior, showing a narrow porch, piled with firewood, and a couple of narrow windows, the glass reflecting the lights of the car sharply back at them. As he killed the engine, John looked at the dark house, wondering if anyone was even there.

"Grab your toys, Johnny, time to play," Abely said, getting out, the soft whirr of the gears in his armour loud in the still silence that filled the clearing beside the open body of water.

He got out, picking up the short-barrelled multi-round shotgun and cocking it, feeling for the long machete sheathed behind his hip. Abely climbed the steps to the porch and peered into the darkness of the interior through the window, shaking his head and making an abrupt gesture to the rear. John nodded and felt for the door handle, feeling it turn easily under his hand, waiting for his partner's signal. From the back he heard a crash and he turned the handle, shoving the door wide and striding in and to the right, out of the doorway, the gas-powered flashlight at the side of his helmet lighting up the long single room as Abely's lit up the other side.

No engine meant no power, and he turned his head slowly, looking for what to be there, seeing it a second later. The oil-lamp was half-full and he lit it with the flint and steel lying beside it, another pool of light spilling out a few yards away as Abely found another lamp.

John undid his helmet and set it down on the table, looking around as his eyes became used to the soft, golden light of the lamps. It was a big single room, an open hearth for cooking to one side, a bed at the other end, shelving covering floor to ceilings around the walls, filled with books, most of them hand-bound, he thought, looking more closely.

"John," Abely's voice cut through his thoughts and he turned, seeing him standing by the bed, a slender pale arm in one hand.

"Is it her?" he asked as he crossed the distance in two strides. Half-hidden beneath the covers, the woman was skeletally thin, her skin waxen and translucent, the blood vessels clearly visible beneath it. "What happened to her?"

"Poison, I think," Abely said, gesturing to the jug on the nightstand beside the bed. "Test it. It won't be lake water, maybe a well, somewhere around the cabin."

He lifted her into a sitting position, arm supporting her back as her head rolled over his shoulder. "Get the kit," he called softly to John.

Running outside, John lifted the heavy wooden box from the back seat. Gil had replenished most of their stock and there were a number of antidotes in the box, if he could narrow the poison down. He hadn't been able to see a pulse in the long, slender throat of the woman, but that gave him a clue as well. Some poisons didn't kill outright, they simply slowed everything down, until the person appeared to be dead, but wasn't.

Carrying the box inside, he left it beside Abely and pulled out the testing swabs, long strips of a variety of materials. Dipping them into the water, one at a time, he watched for the reactions that were expected. The fifth strip, of a thick, felted paper, told him what was in the water.

"Arsenic," John told Abely. The hunter nodded, holding up the Keeper's hand. White lines showed clearly in the lamp-light, horizontally across the nail beds.

"Gil has the antidote," he said, face screwing up slightly as he tried to remember what it was called. "The Capitulas bottle, I think, dark blue or purple liquid."

Searching through the open box, John found the bottle, the contents a deep indigo. "How is it administered?"

"Down the hatch, one capful," Abely said, shifting his position on the bed to support the woman's head. "Works the same way the arsenic does, through the digestive system."

John poured the measure carefully and lifted the cap, tipping the contents into her open mouth. Immediately, her lips and tongue were stained a dark blue and he looked nervously at Abely.

"Supposed to do that?"

Abely nodded, easing her down. "This is going to take a couple of days," he said. "Check the well and we'll need to go over the cabin with a fine-toothed comb. Someone's been in here, maybe someone she trusted, to set this up. We need to figure out who."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

_**July 23, 1988. Lake Michigan, Wisconsin.**_

John sat on the creaking porch steps, staring absently at the lake as the growing light painted it in streaks of silver and rose, the surface smooth and glassy and undisturbed. He was barely aware of his surroundings, or the sticky, odoriferous state of his clothing, the Keeper's vomit drying slowly on his pants and shirt, or the growl of his stomach, complaining of hunger and thirst after the labours of the night.

In a semi-trance state of mind, he was looking at the pieces that lay around him, pieces of a puzzle that was too big to take in all at once. _Demons_, using a religious institution to further their reach, right into the hearts of the towns and cities that were all so isolated anyway. _Knowledge_, kept and gathered over a thousand years.

_Mary_.

He still didn't know what had happened to his wife or why. A demon had come into their home, into Sammy's nursery, and had killed her. But why? She had been a hunter, he knew now. From a long line of hunters, many of whom had aided the order over the centuries. She'd never told him. He'd sat in the Campbell house, at the long oak table in their dining room, eaten their food with them and none of them had ever indicated that there was anything different about them, about the family that hunted monsters in the darkness.

Emerson and Mina had found nothing in the archives, those they'd been able to save from Kansas City, nor in the libraries of the other chapters they'd been able to contact.

_The demons knew why._

The thought was almost alien in its cold practicality and he started slightly against the porch column, at the image that filled his mind's eye. He became abruptly aware of the cool morning air on his skin, of the smell rising from his clothing, of the restless itch that invaded his skin, tingling with the aftermath of that image.

Getting to his feet, he walked fast down the slope to the water's edge, pulling his clothing off impatiently and throwing it into the shallow water by the pebbled shore. The lake water was cold, ice-silk against the flush of fevered heat that pulsed through him. Arcing forward in a flat, shallow dive, John felt the image vanish as he went beneath the water's surface, the heat washed out by the cold, the itch remaining as he began to stroke away from the shoreline, forcing himself faster, his blood pumping through his body, trying to outrun the thoughts and ideas that had come with the picture of a demon, trapped and screaming and telling him everything.

* * *

Abely watched the man churning through the water, heading deeper into the lake, from the cabin's small front window. The tension had been building in his friend for months now and there was very little he could do to help John with it, no quick or simple reasons he could give the man for what had happened, was happening. Would happen.

He turned back to the cabin's interior. The Keeper was lying on the bed, sleeping now. Another day and the poison would be flushed from her system but he thought they might've been too late anyway, her delicate frame wasted too far past a point of recovery.

Walking slowly over to the side of the bed, he looked down. The finely-shaped skull was visible beneath a bare fuzz of dark hair that lay like a shadow over it, and beneath the milky skin stretched drum-tight over the bones of her face. Even at rest, there was something in her that wouldn't let him see her as womanly, or beautiful or fragile or any of the other descriptions he might've thought of on first sight. He could only see her in terms of what she wasn't … male or ugly or strong. And not exactly human, any longer, he thought uneasily.

He startled as her eyes snapped open, too big in the hollow-cheeked face, huge black pupils slowly contracting to show deep blue irises. They turned slowly to him.

"Abely … Thompson," she rasped, her chest heaving with the effort.

He nodded, turning to the table beside the bed and pouring a glass of water, sliding his arm beneath thin shoulders to lift her higher and holding the rim of the glass against her mouth. For a second, her eyes widened as she looked at the water, and he realised her fear.

"The well was poisoned," he said quickly, glancing toward the window. "This is from the lake."

He tilted the glass and she swallowed as the water filled her mouth, eyelids dropping. He let her drink another two mouthfuls before he took the glass away, setting it back on the table.

"Not much at a time," he cautioned and she opened her eyes to look at him.

"Demons."

The single word came out clearly, without the roughness of the dry throat.

"That's why we came to find you," he acknowledged wryly. "We think someone opened a Gate."

"One came through," she confirmed. "And it opened another Gate. There are many here now."

Abely turned as he heard the footsteps on the porch, recognising John's tread and shaking his head reassuringly at the woman.

"My partner."

"The Council has convened," she said to him, her eyes narrowing as if she was looking elsewhere, seeing something he couldn't. "You need to take me back."

"You're sick," he told her gently. "I don't think you'll survive the journey."

She turned to look at him, and her mouth curved in a slight smile. "I will not survive another cycle of the moon, hunter. But I will survive to speak to the Council. Get me clothes, and food. We need to be gone before nightfall."

* * *

_**July 24, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

"Who's that?"

Dean looked around at the whispered question, seeing Stanley and Rick leaning together at their desks, both of them looking toward the door. He followed their eyeline and saw the group standing with Alleyn; a tall red-haired man, his arm around a slender, dark-haired woman, a boy and a slightly younger girl standing next to them.

"Curdy," Terence whispered back to them. "Both hunters, my Dad said. They moved into Conroy's place."

Ducking his head, Dean watched the parents leave, the boy and girl following the teacher with the awkwardness of unfamiliarity.

"Children, this is Moss and … um … it's Olivia, isn't it, dear? Olivia Curdy. They'll be joining our summer classes and then starting with us full-time in the fall."

Dean looked up with the rest, the low, restless murmur of curiosity buzzing through the room as the two children were studied by fourteen pairs of eyes.

"Moss, take the desk behind Mr Winchester, if you please," Alleyn instructed. "Olivia, there's a free desk with Molly and she can explain what we're doing here today."

Moss Curdy was around his own age, Dean saw as the boy wound his way across the class-room toward him. Chestnut-brown hair kept short at the sides and back but flopping over his forehead, dark-brown eyes and a wide gap between his two front teeth must have prompted some kind of free association from Stanley, who called out in a low voice as he passed.

"We got a beaver in class, fellas."

Dean watched the boy's fair skin colour up, saw the hands curl into tight fists as the shoulders tightened and his mouth opened involuntarily.

"Moly, comin' from someone who looks like the illegitimate offspring of a sheep and wolverine, that's almost a compliment!"

Hum's broad accent and deep voice beat him to it, ringing out clearly in the almost-silent room and Dean blinked in astonishment, looking across at him and getting a flickered wink in return.

"_Mister_ Cumberland, you will be preparing a fifteen-hundred word essay this evening on the development and application of manners in polite society, to be handed in to me tomorrow!" Alleyn said loudly, the hush in the room following that pronouncement broken by the slurring sound of thirteen kids' butts swivelling on their chairs to look at Hum.

Stanley, Dean noticed, did not look triumphantly at the older boy, his head bowed and a brick-red flush visible up his neck. Hum, by contrast, stared straight back at the teacher and nodded readily, clearly considering both responsibility and consequence well worth the effort.

He turned his head to look at the new kid. Moss' hands had uncurled and the colour tinting his skin had disappeared. He looked almost jaunty as he strolled past to the desk behind, a screak as he pulled the chair out, following by the thud of him sitting down. Turning around to look at him, Dean saw him nod slightly to Hum and the whispered welcome he'd had all ready remained jammed in his throat when he saw Hum smile slightly in return.

"Ghouls," Alleyn's crisp voice filled the room. "There are a number of factors involved in the creation of these monsters and there are many things that you will need to be aware of. Page thirty-six, Mister _Strout_, reading aloud, clearly if you please."

Taylor's reedy voice piped into the room and Dean skimmed over the pages, ignoring it as much as possible. They had another two hours inside the airless class-room then they could go.

* * *

"Dean! Wait up!"

He stopped in the middle of the road, turning around and hiding his surprise as Hum walked fast toward him, followed by Mick and the two new kids.

Looking at them warily as they approached, Dean wondered what they wanted. Hum'd made his position clear the last they'd spoken.

"I'm sorry." The two words exploded breathlessly from the older boy as he stopped in front of him.

It was the last thing he'd expected his friend to say, and he stood there silently, not knowing how to respond to the apology or the look on Hum's face, a beseeching plea for understanding that reached into him and closed his throat.

"I know it sucked, I didn't know how to defuse my ma," Hum continued hurriedly in the face of that silence. "I'm sorry, man, I should'a stood up to her and told her that folk are idiots – that you – you couldn't –"

"S'okay," Dean cut him off, looking uncomfortably at the ground as Mick, Moss and Olivia stopped behind Hum.

"I'm sorry too, Dean," Mick blurted out, the tips of his ears fire-engine red.

Waving his hand in a vague, blanket acceptance, Dean shook his head. He didn't want this to become a deal. He could see the open curiosity on the faces of the other boy and girl and he looked away, shrugging casually.

"Not a big deal," he told them, glad his voice sounded normal. His eyes met Hum's and he saw that he, at least, knew that was a lie, but Mick just looked relieved.

"Good, this is Moss and his sister, Olivia," he said, gesturing to them. "They moved here, into Conroy's place."

"I was _in_ class today, Mick," Dean reminded him mildly, nodding to the boy and girl, receiving acknowledging nods in return.

"Yeah, right," Mick said, oblivious to the faint rebuke. "Their parents have been hunting wendigo, up in the north for the last two years."

Dean looked at Moss curiously. "Just wendigo?"

The boy shook his head. "Nobody _just_ hunts wendigo, they aren't that common," he said, a little scornfully. "Manitou, skinwalkers, tskuareg as well, a long way north. We've been right up to the ice."

"You'll have to excuse my brother," Olivia said, stepping toward to them as she gave her brother a sharp glance. "He doesn't have any manners."

Looking at her closely for the first time, he saw she wasn't much younger than Moss, She had her father's dark red curly hair, pulled back from her face in a thick, long braid, and whiskey-coloured eyes, lighter than her brother's, fringed with thick dark lashes.

"'_Scuse_ me," Moss said, turning his back on her.

"I thought I'd show 'em the river, through the woods," Hum interrupted, looking at Dean. "You comin'?"

He wanted to. It was hot and the river was a good place to cool down and he wanted to talk to Hum, about what'd happened, not just here but in Nebraska as well. He knew he was already late for Mina, and he shook his head.

"Can't today," he told Hum, a little uncomfortably. The scholar hadn't specifically told him not to tell anyone about his extra work at the order, but he'd had the strong feeling from her that it was not something to be treated lightly or told to anyone. "I … um … I've still got things to do at home."

"Tomorrow then? No classes – we could go for a swim?" The older boy persisted. He'd seen the flash of pain in Dean's eyes when he'd told him that his mother wouldn't allow him to hang out with the child who'd been turned. Had seen how alone Dean'd been. He'd felt like a coward and he wanted to make it up to him, make it right and wipe out that mistake.

"Sure," Dean agreed, already turning and walking up the road as he said it. "I'll meet you at the lane."

"Early!" Hum insisted, raising his voice as Dean moved away. "Before eight!"

Nodding, Dean kept walking. Mina didn't like tardiness any more than Alleyn did, and although she wasn't mean about it, she had an interesting turn of invective when it suited her.

* * *

He looked up when Mina hurried through the stone room, skirts gathered in one hand, her pen bobbing beside her ear where she'd thrust it through the tight skein of her drawn-back hair, her narrow bootheels clicking loudly on the flagged floor.

"Keep reading!" she threw at him over her shoulder as she pulled open the door at the far end of the room and disappeared through it. He might've followed that instruction if Emerson hadn't burst into the room a moment later, hurrying with the same urgency through the room, coat tails flapping behind him. The tall scholar didn't even spare him a glance as he shut the door behind him.

One in a rush might've been anything, he thought, closing the book in front of him and getting to his feet. Two of them meant that something was up. Going to the door, he cracked it open, looking out and pulling it wider as he heard the deep rumble of his father's voice in the hall at the top of the narrow wooden stairs.

"No, she insisted," John was saying, the words becoming clearer as Dean began to climb the stairs cautiously. The door at the top was obviously open and he didn't want to be seen.

"Abely's gone to Wayne," his father continued. "He'll bring them here, but she wanted to speak to you first."

"I'll get Gil," Mina said, turning to Emerson. "Jim's parlour is big enough for everyone."

"Bring Millie, Mina," John told her. "She needs food, and rest, and I think she'll accept it from Millie where she won't from us."

"Take her to the house, John," Emerson's voice boomed out and Dean ducked back down a step. The scholar had sounded as if he was right next to the door, but he heard his footsteps receding, heels clocking away down the aisle of the church to the rear. The front door opened and Dean eeled out of the sacristy, closing the crypt door and hiding in the shadows as he watched the taillights of the black car brighten then fade as it moved around the church to Jim's tall frame house.

It could only be the Keeper, he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs at the thought of seeing the mysterious person he'd heard about for himself. He ducked out the front door, jumping down the porch steps and clinging to the side of the church as he crabbed down to the corner. Abely had gone to get the Council. He wanted to see them as well, wanted to find out what the hell was happening and what any of it could mean for his family.

Hesitating at the corner, he watched his father stop the car by Jim's porch, moving around to the rear door and opening it, and half-lifting someone out. The porch light was behind them and Dean frowned as he saw how thin the person was; in silhouette next to his father, the Keeper looked like a stick figure. He watched as his father bent slightly, picking the figure up and carrying them up the short, steep flight of steps. Under the brightness of the porch light, he saw that the Keeper had little hair, barely a dark shadow over the skull. The door opened and his father walked through it, closing it behind him with one booted heel, and Dean glanced around nervously. If he was caught now, he'd be sent home, he knew. In the church he could hear Emerson's raised voice, the words unintelligible but the tone clear.

He ducked his head and ran across the open lawn between church and house, skidding for the corner and narrowly missing the flowerbed in the dark. He barely made the corner of the coal chute when he heard voices coming across the field from their house. Mina, Gil and Millie were hurrying through the darkness toward the building.

"I can't leave Sam with just Melia there for long," Millie said loudly and Dean pressed himself back into the dark shadow of the corner between the house and chute as they passed a few feet away. "Has Dean finished his studies? Where is he?"

"He's at the church, I'll fetch him shortly, Millie," Mina said soothingly.

Hearing their boots on the steps, Dean eased himself out of the corner, running doubled-over for the back of the house. He knew this house as well as he knew his own, and he'd already figured he'd be safer to get upstairs and listen from the stairwell, rather than find a hiding place on the first floor. He stopped as he came even with the parlour windows. They were tall, graceful windows that filled the room with sunshine in the winter months, almost floor-to-ceiling, and now they were spilling the light from the room across the ground, the curtains still open. Inching his way between the priest's roses and a rampant honeysuckle vine, he reached up and caught the lower sill, chinning high enough to see over the edge.

His father, Jim, Mina, Gil and Emerson stood in a loose circle around the long sofa facing the hearth, and Millie was leaning over the …_woman_ … lying on it, talking quietly to her.

She was skeletally thin, he saw, the light shadowing the hollows in her face as she listened to Millie, her head tilted slightly. She nodded after a moment and Millie rose, turning and bustling from the room, heading for the kitchen. Dean froze into immobility as he saw the Keeper turn her head to the window.

She'd seen him … or sensed him somehow, he thought as her gaze focussed on him, the large eyes narrowing slightly. _She couldn't_, he argued with himself. _With the lights on, she would only be able to see darkness outside_.

Nevertheless, he felt his blood freeze as she looked straight at him, her lips lifting very slightly on one side in an almost-smile he _knew_ was aimed at him. His neck prickled uncomfortably, feeling her awareness of him through the glass. Fingers numb, he slipped from the sill, landing half on a rose bush and staggering out of it, cut and torn by the thorns. She _had_ seen him, and he wondered if she would say anything to the people in the room.

* * *

He heard Millie in the kitchen as he slipped along the back porch, easing the door open and squeezing through and closing it again silently. There was a narrow set of stairs that led to the second storey from the back hall, and he climbed them carefully, pressed against the inside wall, testing each step before he committed his weight to it. Moving through the empty hall when he'd reached the top, he dropped to his hands and knees at the balustrade railing, then to his stomach as he heard the voices below, the parlour door open.

"There _was_ no warning from Heaven, Emerson," the woman's voice was low and deep, but clear, her tone neutral. "The messenger has not been to see me since 1973."

"When a Gate was opened," Emerson said, frustration evident in his tone. "And the most powerful demon the world has seen for more than a thousand years came through."

"Other Gates have been opened since," the Keeper agreed.

"How?" Mina asked, and Dean inched closer to the railing, peering down through the slender, turned uprights of the balustrade, the open door presenting a narrow slice of the room below. He could see the end of the long sofa, Uncle Jim's soft afghan drawn over the woman lying there. He could see Mina, perched on the arm at the end of it, her face shadowed by the angle at which he was looking. Behind the sofa, Gillette appeared and disappeared, pacing restlessly. Emerson, his father and Jim were hidden, seated or standing elsewhere in the large room.

"The Gates, even in the mythology of old, required enormous sacrifices of blood to open," the diminutive scholar continued, looking from the Keeper to Gil as he strode by her.

"You don't think the murders at the convent were to open a Gate?"

Dean heard his father's voice rumble the question, and the Keeper answered him.

"No. Gates require the blood of hundreds, sometimes thousands for the oldest ones. The ritual at the convent was for something different."

He didn't hear anything behind him, jumping as a hand touched his ear, the fingers pinching closed on it.

"There you are," Millie said softly, pulling him up and looking at him.

"Eavesdropping, Dean, really! Sammy is home with only that fool girl to look after him, and you're going right now!"

He turned for the stairs, walking down them slowly, with Millie behind him, pushing him along.

"Is that the boy?" The Keeper's voice came from the parlour sharply and Dean felt his heart sink. She _had_ seen him, at the window. There was zero chance of him being able to wriggle out of this now.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned to look up the hall, seeing his father, Emerson and Mina step out of the parlour door and look at him. He dropped his gaze to the floor as he glimpsed the darkening of his father's face.

"Bring him here."

"No," Millie said, almost involuntarily, stepping closer to Dean and wrapping her arm around his shoulders.

"Millie … there's nothing to fear," Emerson said and from within the room, the Keeper spoke again. Dean heard the voice slip from the woman's to something else, something deeper and older and not really sounding like a man or a woman.

"Millicent, I will not harm him."

Millie's arm slid away and he looked up at her, feeling a shiver pass through him as she stepped away, her eyes remote and not seeing him anymore, he thought.

"Come on, Dean," his father ordered and he walked to the door, looking cautiously around before stepping through.

Close up, he knew at once that the Keeper was dying. That otherness he'd heard in her voice was fully realised as he looked at her face, neither young nor old, nor overtly ill but not well either, not male or female and not, he realised as she beckoned him closer, really human.

He knelt awkwardly beside the sofa, forcing himself to meet the dark blue eyes steadily, without flinching. She stared at him and he felt a cool wash of air pass over him, felt a tickle in his mind, as if something had brushed by his thoughts lightly.

"No, he is not the one," she said, finally releasing him and looking away. He rocked back on his heels, blinking as the parlour light seemed to dazzle him, feeling dizzy and nauseated. He looked down, away from her when her eyes returned to him.

"Not the one, but there is something …" the Keeper said, her voice so low he wouldn't have heard it at all if he hadn't been so close, and he looked back at her involuntarily at the faint thread of uncertainty in it.

Feeling his father's hand close over his shoulder, he pulled his gaze away, warmth and strength returning to him as he was drawn to his feet.

"Go home, Dean, make sure Sammy's alright," John said softly, turning him and pushing him a little toward the door.

As Dean walked out of the parlour, he heard his father again.

"What did you mean by that, that he's not the one?"

Millie was waiting for him by the front door and she stopped him, her hands settling over both shoulders, her gaze searching his face. "She's not all-powerful, Dean," she whispered, touching his cheek lightly. "Go home, there's dinner in the oven and you can send Melia home and get your brother and yourself to bed."

He nodded, grateful to be leaving the house. Millie's behaviour, his father's question, the strangeness of the Keeper, all of it was churning his thoughts and he wanted nothing more than to be at home with his brother, away from here.

* * *

_**July 25, 1988.**_

His sleep had been restless and filled with amorphous, half-forgotten dreams of monsters and ghosts, rain-filled marshes and whispered instructions that had woken him repeatedly, a lingering feeling of unease following him back into sleep each time.

Standing in the cool morning shadows of the lane, Sammy kneeling beside him retying his shoelace with tongue protruding determinedly between his lips, he dragged in a deep breath and wondered what had happened in the priest's parlour after he'd left. The Council would be here tonight, he realised, and Abely back with them.

"Hi!"

He swung around at the unexpected voice, seeing Moss and Olivia walking up the lane from the village, both dressed in short pants and loose, sleeveless shirts, the girl with a wide-brimmed hat hiding her hair.

"Hey," he said, looking down at his little brother. Sammy had just finished the bow and was pulling it tight, looking over his shoulder at the two approaching. "This is Sammy, my, uh, brother."

"Hi, Sammy," Olivia said, smiling at him. Moss nodded and looked around as he came to a stop.

"Where's Hum and Mick?"

"Not here yet," Dean said pointedly. So far, he wasn't finding himself all that impressed with the boy. "They live on the other side of the village," he added, gesturing vaguely across the fields.

"My Dad told us the Keeper is here," Moss said, his shoulders hunched a little. "And the Council is coming."

"He didn't _tell_ us," Olivia explained, rolling her eyes at her brother. "He was talking to Mom about it and we overheard them."

The boy sucked in a deep breath, tucking his chin to his chest as he let it out in an audible sigh, and Dean looked away, hiding his amusement at the obvious frustration Moss felt. A sister who insisted on the truth at all times would be a monumental pain in the ass to live with, he realised, glancing back at him. It went some way to explaining the boy's grating attitudes.

"My father brought her in last night," he said casually. "She was poisoned and I think she's dying."

"You saw her?" Olivia's eyes widened at the thought. "What was she like?"

"Thin," Dean said shortly, unaccountably reluctant to share anything further about her with either of them. Their curiosity was understandable, but the moments when the strange woman had looked at him, _through_ him, he remembered with a flash of discomfort, he couldn't share with anyone.

"There they are," Moss said, seeing the older boys running across the open fields toward them. "Is this the wood where you were attacked by a vampire?"

Dean caught the corner of his lower lip between his teeth as he felt the invasiveness of the question. Sammy looked up at Moss warily and seeing his little brother's expression, he felt a slight flush of shame. Sammy was ready to feel defensive on his behalf, he realised and that had come from him, from allowing his brother to see exactly how it had affected him. He looked back at Moss and forced his voice to a casual nonchalance.

"Yeah."

"You're going to be famous, you know," Olivia told him, her eyes crinkling up at the corners with an embarrassingly obvious admiration. "My Mom said it was the first successful cure and it will save hundreds of hunters' lives."

Frowning, he shook his head. "I think Gil will be famous for that."

He was relieved when Hum and Mick climbed through the fence and joined them. He hadn't realised how much had changed since he'd gotten back, or maybe, he thought, how much he'd changed. Like or not, he was different from the rest of the kids now. Their curiosity about him, sometimes underlaid by a well-hidden mistrust or outright fear, had set him apart in a way, he was just coming to recognise, would be permanent.

"Is the Keeper at the church?" Hum asked him as they walked to the trail head and started down through the woods. The older boy was the only one who seemed unaffected by what had happened, treating him – _now_ – the same as he'd always done.

"Yeah, Dad brought her in last night and Abely went to get the Council," he told Hum in a low voice. Mick was leading the way, Moss walking beside him and Olivia was holding Sammy's hand and talking to him as they walked behind her brother. "She's dying, Hum. I think they're coming to choose a new Keeper."

Hum's family were normals, not hunters, but the boy was going to apprentice to one of the hunters on his majority and he seemed to have pretty good contacts for information already. He'd wanted to talk to Hum about Caleb, and the fostering system in Wayne, but his ostracisation in Blue Earth had prevented him. He wondered if Hum would want to go to another family.

"Moss told us that his folks stopped in Wayne on the way here," Hum said, matching his volume so that the kids ahead wouldn't hear. "They were talking about demons in the town, attacking the roadhouse?"

Another thing that set him apart, Dean thought. He'd almost forgotten the tattoo that marked his chest, a tattoo he was going to have to explain when he went into the river.

He nodded. "There was a demon attack while we were there. One of the townspeople was possessed."

Hum turned to look at him, eyes widening in disbelief. "But … Alleyn told us that demons can't get out of Hell."

"They can now," Dean said dryly. "Hum, there's a lot you don't know, a lot nobody knows right now. It's bad but you can't tell people about this, alright? Dad and Abely and Jim have protected the town and no demon can get past the tracks anymore, but what's going on, outside, that's something different."

"How'd you find out?"

He shook his head. "There was a lot of talk, in Nebraska. The hunters went out to a few of the cities." He stopped, thinking of everything that had happened. "I can't talk about it now, here. Later on, maybe."

"Holding you to that, Winchester," Hum warned him, the light-hearted tone of his voice belied by the seriousness in his eyes.

"Yeah, I'll fill you in, but no one else, alright?"

"Sure."

They came off the trail at the bend in the river, hot sunshine filling the open ground and sparkling from the water. In the river valley, the air was still and the thick vegetation trapped the heat effectively.

"Mick! Take 'em to the tree-house!" Hum called out, gesturing up river, and on the pebbled shore, Mick nodded, turning to follow the river along the bank.

* * *

_**July 26, 1988.**_

Sitting in the deep embrasure of his window, Dean watched the headlights of the line of vehicles that came slowly into and through the village, all turning for the little church and parking in the fields that bordered the priest's garden. He saw them get out and go up the steps into Jim's house, singly and in small groups, briefly illuminated by the light next to the front door, then vanishing into the hallway of the house.

One vehicle passed by the church and continued and looking down at it, he recognised Abely's over-sized hybrid of car and truck, the engine rumbling loudly as it turned into the driveway.

He'd been surprised and disconcerted that neither his father nor the experienced hunter would be allowed to be a part of the Council's meeting with the Keeper, not even as observers. His father had turned away with a shrug, telling him that the Council business was not for all the hunters. He'd wanted to ask who was coming, but he had the feeling his father didn't know.

Below, two doors opened and shut, and Dean looked down, seeing a familiar, long-limbed figure walking out of his sight to the porch. Grinning, he twisted himself off the window ledge and rocketed to the door, pulling it open and racing for the stairs.

In the brightly-lit hallway, Caleb looked up at the thundering feet coming down the stairs, a wide grin spreading over his face.

"What the –?" Dean asked, looking from his friend to Abely as the hunter shut the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Moses had to come, so he brought me along, figured I might be useful," Caleb answered, glancing back at Abely. "Thought I might see how the other half lives, anyway."

Abely caught John's eye over the boys' heads and was relieved to see John smiling quizzically at him.

"They'll be holed up at Jim's for the next couple of days, I thought Caleb would be more comfortable here," Abely said, picking up his bag and walking around the two boys. Millie came down the hall behind John.

"Dean, show Caleb his room and then all of you get washed up, dinner's almost ready," she told them, wiping her hands on her apron.

* * *

The thirteen members of the Hunter's Council sat around the long maple table in Jim's dining room, silent and waiting. They turned to look at the door as it opened and Jim came in, the Keeper leaning on his arm.

"I don't have much time," she told them, her voice thickened and rough. Jim guided her to the chair that had been left at the end of the table and she lowered herself into it carefully, turning back to look at the door. "The messenger is here."

In the doorway, a man stood, looking incuriously at the faces that stared at him, ocean-blue eyes expressionless. "There is a schism in Heaven."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

* * *

_**July 27, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

In the shadows of the barn's high rafters, pigeons cooed and fluttered, their restless socialising breaking the silence between the three boys. It was stifling in the loft, and the hay and straw dust coated their skin, itching and sticky, but it was completely private.

Hum stared at the tattoo on his friend's chest, and shook his head. "Conroy never come back from Lincoln," he said nervously, his gaze flicking from the tattoo to Caleb and back to Dean. "No one said why."

"Lincoln wasn't as bad as Kansas City," Caleb told him. "They went in and cleaned it out, cleaned out Omaha and Des Moines too. That religious group packed up and headed south, but they'll be back."

Dean lifted a quizzical brow at him and the older boy shrugged. "Overheard Moses talking to Trenton about it last week. Said a few citizens went off with them, gave up their jobs, their homes … everything."

"What's happening with the Keeper?" Hum looked at Dean. "Nobody says anything in the village."

"She's dying," Dean said, ducking his head. "The Council are waiting to get word if anyone's having visions."

"Was there really an angel at the church?"

Dean glanced at Caleb and they both nodded.

"What'd it look like?" Hum persisted, his eyes wide and round.

"Like a person," Dean told him impatiently; in much the same manner as his father had told him. "They take a vessel, like demons, when they're on this plane."

"Holy moly," Hum breathed, wondering what that entailed. "What'd it want?"

"Not sure," Dean admitted reluctantly.

"The grown-ups are keeping it close," Caleb added. Neither had been able to get any information about the angel other than its presence in the church from any of the adults who'd been present at the meeting, or from those who were close enough to Jim to get a run-down. Council business, they said and that was the end of it.

"When will they know about the new Keeper?" Hum stared down at his hands. Hunting had seemed like a fine thing to do, when it'd been monsters and ghosts and muties. Adding demons … and angels … to the mix was not such a fine thought, he realised uncomfortably.

"They're searching now," Caleb answered, glancing at Dean. "I haven't heard anything."

Dean shook his head. "Abely said until the Keeper dies, whatever it is that gets passed on won't show up in the next one. Just, uh, visions."

A low buzz intruded into the conversation, Dean's head snapping around as he registered it. Insectile and persistent, it grew louder and the boys got to their feet, hurrying across the straw-scattered wooden boards to the loft door at the end.

"It's Gil!" Dean pointed to a faint black dot against the deep blue summer sky, swinging around and racing for the ladder.

When they came of the barn's cooler interior, the small plane was much closer, its outstretched cloth-covered wings translucent as it passed in front of the sun, showing the skeletal frame and venous webbing beneath, the light timber body glistening under varnish as it banked sharply against the light and made its approach to the flat field beside the church.

They ran hard for the field, jumping over the stone wall and slowing as the plane touched down, bouncing several times, its tail rising alarmingly for a second then settling down as the pilot eased back on the throttle and the articulated flaps at the rear of the wings lifted.

Dean glanced around. The noise and sight had brought nearly all the kids and a lot of the adults running up from the village, mouths slightly agape as the fragile, artificial bird taxied bumpily over the rough ground and came to a stop near Jim's house. Gil got out of the narrow fuselage, pulling off a tight, leather helmet and multi-lensed goggles, the sunlight catching his hair as he climbed carefully down.

"Dean!" he shouted, seeing the boys when he looked around. "Where's Jim?"

Gesturing at the house, Dean started to run toward him. "What happened?"

"There was an attack on Wayne, four demons," the inventor said tersely as Dean wheeled around beside him. Gil's long legs strode across the grass as he headed for the church, forcing even Caleb into a half-run to keep up. "Ainslie Umpleby had visions, before it happened."

"What?!" Caleb skidded to a halt.

Glancing back at him, Gil shrugged and walked up the porch steps of Jim's house.

"That's impossible," Caleb said to Dean, almost accusingly. "That – that – lily-livered, chicken-hearted bounder couldn't be –"

"Shut it," Dean cut him off, taking the steps in threes to catch up to the inventor. "Gil –"

Gillette turned at the door, looking down at him. "No." He looked past Dean to Caleb and shook his head. "I've already said too much. You're not a hunter, not yet. Keep an eye on my machine, don't let anyone touch it."

The rebuke had been mild, but Dean felt it as a slap, turning away as the man opened the door and went inside. He looked down at the steps as he went down them, trying to force his thoughts back to what Gil had said.

Umpleby was nineteen. Caleb's assessment wasn't far off, for all that the older boy had a few personal issues with Ainslie, he thought. But if he'd had a vision of the attack, it meant the Keeper was very close to death. And the Council would be returning to Wayne.

"There's no way –" Caleb muttered, looking at him. Hum stood next to the bottom of the steps.

"What did he mean?"

Shrugging, Dean waved a hand toward the plane, brows drawing together as he saw that it was surrounded by people.

"The new Keeper has visions, when the old one is nearly gone," Caleb answered, turning to follow Dean across the garden and back to the field. "No one knows how they're chosen, or why."

"Doesn't matter," Dean said over his shoulder, hurrying to the plane. "Wayne was attacked and that makes twice it's been targeted, Caleb –" He frowned as he saw the crowd reaching out to touch the wings and body. "Hey! Don't touch that!"

The crowd around the plane turned and backed away as the boys came up, moving further at the pugnacious expression on Dean's face. There were, he thought, some advantages to being considered different from everyone else.

* * *

_**July 29, Wayne, Nebraska**_

Ellen caught the flash of blue in the corner of her eye, her head snapping around instantly.

"Jobeth Harvelle, you get back to your room this instant!"

The little girl froze behind the table and looked at her mother. She recognised the implacable expression on Ellen's face immediately and turned, her small face the picture of a beseeching plea, aimed at her father.

"But –"

Ellen saw the subversion and didn't need to look at her husband to know that within the next thirty seconds it would work on him as it always did.

"No buts, get back upstairs and stay there," she said abruptly.

Jo watched her father's head duck and gave up the pretence, frowning at her mother. There were times when she could get around her, but, she realised at once, this was not going to be one of them. Lifting her chin, she about-faced and stalked from the main saloon, her back ramrod-straight with self-righteous indignation.

"Gonna have a handful with her one of these days," Jim remarked with a one-sided smile.

"Don't have to tell me that," Ellen retorted, looking at Bill who found something interesting to stare at in the bottom of his glass. "Child has an abundance of sass that gets indulged too often."

Rufus snorted quietly into his whiskey. "Wonder who she took after?"

"Hmmmf."

Bobby looked around the table. "Council ratified Ainslie's position yet?"

"Yes," Gil said, straightening up in his chair and leaning forward, his elbows gawkily akimbo and resting on the table. "He's still recovering from the last vision, but he'll probably leave in the next day or two."

"Vision that said demons were massing in the west?" Rufus asked sourly.

"What?" Bobby turned to look at him.

"Doesn't bother anyone that the messenger didn't say nothin' about this?" Rufus said, tipping the last of his whiskey into his mouth and swallowing hard. "Or the fact that two kids went missing in that attack and demons don't take prisoners?"

"Given the news the angel did have," Gil said slowly, looking down at the table top. "It doesn't surprise me that they're a little too busy to be concerned with what the demons are doing here."

"What's on your mind, Rufus?" Jim asked bluntly.

The older hunter shook his head, eyes closing. "Nothing – I don't know. Making my skin itch, that things are happening the way they are." He opened his eyes and looked at the priest. "We sent those fanatics packing, Jim. Less than three weeks later, there's another attack here, and this time, they're changing the rules, taking those kids."

"We don't know enough –" Gil started to say but Rufus cut him off.

"Right, we _don't_ know enough. And it looks like that's not changing in the near future." He looked at Gil, his face hard. "An' we got no oracle, we got a Keeper I'd sooner trust a rattlesnake ahead of, some kind of holy war going on in Heaven an' three other families like Winchester's, that we know of. It stinks, all of it."

"What, exactly, do you propose, Rufus?"

Rufus glared at him. "I don't know!" he snapped, getting up and snagging his coat with one hand. "Jus' know I ain't sitting around here waitin' for that pimple-faced little pissant to come up with another line of horseshit."

"Rufus –" Ellen started to rise from her chair and Bill put out a restraining hand.

"Let him go, Ellen," Bobby said gruffly. "My gut ain't arguing his points, and if he and Abe check out what's going on in Colorado, that'll be one less job we have to worry about."

"Gil, the Keeper should've confirmed Ainslie." Ellen watched Rufus stalk to the door and outside.

"Yes," the inventor said heavily. "She should've, but she was weakened by the journey to Blue Earth and the poison and she didn't."

"And we still don't have any leads on who poisoned her," Bill said, not adding aloud what they were all thinking. Only a hunter or an angel could've found her.

Bobby shifted in his chair, pushing his cap back. "Spilt milk. The situation is what we got, not the way we want it," he grunted. "This place stays on lockdown. I got the sheriff on alert at home, and Jim, you and Emerson'll have to keep Blue Earth safe. Peg said they haven't had trouble since we got back from Des Moines, but she's got eyes and ears keeping watch for her. Anyone else got any ideas, now's the time to hear 'em."

Ellen sighed as no one spoke. Having the town in lockdown was barely a solution, she thought. The roadhouse was safe enough, but the townspeople were vulnerable, even with the track laid around the outskirts. They could be starved out, she guessed, if it came to that.

* * *

Ainslie Umpleby was dreaming.

Turning restlessly in the double bed, his skin beaded with sweat and stinking of the fear that filled and overflowed his sleeping thoughts, he fought against the tangle of linen holding him down and moaned, his eyes screwing ever more tightly shut at the images that coruscated through his mind.

_Cities on fire and grotesque figures hanging and swinging, silhouetted against the flames, their gutted bodies slowly blackening. High-pitched, maniacal laughter echoed against the roar of the wind, snatched away and thrown here and there as he ran blindly under a turgid sky in light that washed the streets and buildings in magenta._

_I am the chosen one. I am the Chosen one. I am the chosen One. I am the Chosen One_. The thought played endlessly in time with his footsteps, with his heartbeat and the thunder of the blood in his ears, and somewhere, faint and distant and terrifyingly close, something chuckled, and yellow flashed in the shadows. _Oh yes. Yes, you are._

"I am –!" he gasped, sitting up, his back slamming against the carved wooden headboard as he lifted his arm over his face, blocking a blow that never came.

He looked around the dim room, sunlight leaking around the edges of the thick curtains that covered the windows, the candle guttering in the bowl on the nightstand.

_They think I'm weak, that I'm a coward._

_They will never think that again_. The voice soothed in his memories.

_I am not a bad man._

_Of course not, opportunity simply hasn't presented itself. Until now._

He pushed the bunched and constricting bed sheets aside, standing and walking away from the malodorous bed and the almost-visible vapours of his nightmares hanging over it. Picking up the ewer and pouring water into the porcelain bowl beside it, he dipped his hands in, splashing the tepid liquid over his face and neck, running wet fingers through his hair. In the softly tinted mirror, hanging above the basin, he saw his face, hollowed and gaunt now. He hadn't eaten for four days, had barely been able to sleep or rest. The thoughts that filled his mind were disturbing.

Mina had frowned when he'd told her some of them, the least of them. Threshold sickness, she'd said. Transitioning from one state of existence to another induced disorientation. It had sounded plausible at the time.

_Consent and you will be more powerful than you can possibly imagine._

He shook his head. He was becoming, that's all it was. Becoming the Keeper, the one who could see across the dimensions. Was it any wonder that his brain was having difficulties with discerning the differences between old fears, new visions and a slowly emerging knowledge of the othersides?

Impatiently, he stripped off his shirt, the fine lawn sodden and sour with sweat, and let it drop to the floor. He washed and turned to the bureau, pulling out drawers, his fingers finding fresh, clean clothing.

He needed to go east. The thought – the _compulsion_ – was very strong. East and south to … study, he thought, less certainly. Study and meditate on the changes. Dragging in a deep breath, he wondered if the Harvelles would provide him with a car, now.

* * *

_**August 5, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

Dean lay on his back, floating in the cold centre of the river, eyes half-closed against the brilliance of the sun's reflection from the water. He could hear the others, over the burble of the river's current against his ears, shouting and calling to each other, splashes and Olivia's shrill little screams when someone dunked her beneath the surface. He could feel the warmth of the sunlight on his skin, over chest and shoulders and stomach and legs, cold underneath but not so much as to be uncomfortable.

The last few days had passed quickly. Jim had left for Wayne and he'd been released from studies and from the school lessons as well, and Caleb had stayed on when Moses and the rest of the Council had gone, Abely promising to take him back in a few days.

There were six of them, spending their days in almost-normality, he thought. Caleb and Hum, Mick and Moss and Olivia and himself. They'd looked to him to think of the things to do and where and when to do them and he found himself both enjoying the odd and unexpected promotion to leader, and at the same time disliking the feeling of further pressure, the press of the others' attention on him. He'd taken to disappearing, from time to time, finding a place to walk or sit or be alone, rejoining them after those interludes, when he felt more sociable.

The snap of a branch, somewhere along the bank, caught his attention, and he rolled in the water, feet touching the ground and eyes scanning the trees that lined the river. Caleb and Hum both felt the change, turning to look at the river's edge as well.

Stan and Rick walked down the path and stopped next to the willow as Dean waded closer. He saw Stan's eyes narrow, the high forehead wrinkle up as the boy looked from him to the others, all watching them now.

"Winchester," Stan said with a half-hearted attempt at a growl. Beside him, Dean saw Rick's eyes flicker beyond him, and knew that Caleb and Hum, Mick, Moss and Olivia had moved to stand behind him.

It was like watching a pair of junkyard dogs, Dean thought, keeping his face expressionless. Neither had considered the possibility of being out-numbered before they'd come down and he could see both were reconsidering what they'd been thinking.

"Belthorpe," he drawled back, taking another couple of steps across the smooth mica bed of the stream toward the two boys, hearing the faints splashes of the others moving as well.

For a second, Stan's face screwed up, his mouth opening for an insult or challenge then he closed it and turned away abruptly, pushing Ricky hard along the bank. Dean heard him mutter something, the words lost under the other boy's stumbling yelp of surprise.

"Didn't quite catch that," he called out to Stan derisively and got a furious glare in return as the two boys climbed the trail back through the woods.

"What was that all about?" Caleb asked him.

Shaking his head, Dean said, "No idea."

He turned around and dove back into the river, effectively ending the conversation. Sooner or later he would have another meeting with Stan, whose capacity for self-deception far exceeded his common-sense. He hoped the boy would pick a time when he was on his own.

* * *

John sat in the study, staring sightlessly at the books on the desk in front of him, the image in his mind holding him rigid with its promise of action and answers.

They had the traps and Mina said that she and Emerson had saved two of the order's weapons against the hellspawn from the building in Kansas City. Even if they hadn't, he had already thought of several other ways, the ideas coming to him easily as he gained knowledge of the denizens of the underworld, their strengths … and their weaknesses.

"John?" Abely came into the room, looking around, his gaze passing over the unmoving man at first, then flicking back. "John?"

John blinked slowly, the image retreating but not leaving him. He looked at Abley, unaware that his expression still held the stony rage that had filled him a moment ago.

"You alright?" Abely walked across the room to the desk.

"Yes," John said stiffly, his face relaxing slightly. "Fine, what's wrong?"

"Jim's back," the older hunter told him, stopping by the edge of the desk and glancing down at the open books in front of John.

"And?"

Abely's gaze lifted. "Ainslie's disappeared. He told Ellen that we had to be ready to stop a full-blown attack in Boulder before he went."

John shook his head a little. "Gone? Wha– Boulder ?"

"What the hell have you been reading, John?"

Looking down, John shrugged. "Emerson had some of the oldest lore on demons." He looked back at the other man. "I've been playing catch up. I need to get ahead for once."

"Not with those," Abely said, grimacing as he took in the simple, woodcut illustrations.

"What's going on with Umpleby, Abely?" John shut the books and stood up.

"The Council agreed he's the Keeper," Abely said, gesturing to the door. "Come on, Jim's expecting us."

"And Boulder?"

"A vision, apparently," Abely said over his shoulder, his gaze cutting back to the texts on the desk uneasily. "Massing in the west and looking to cut us off from the western cities."

"The messenger didn't say anything –"

"Yeah, a point of controversy," Abely cut him off. "Jim'll explain it."

"Where're the boys?"

"Millie's with Sam. Dean went out with his friends a few hours ago."

John nodded, feeling the image and the raw, bloody thoughts receding with the normalcy of walking, of talking to Abely, of thinking of other things.

He squinted as they walked down the hall and through the wide parlour, stepping out through the French doors into the garden, the sunlight brilliant and hot in his eyes, on his skin.

"Is this what happened the last time a new Keeper was … chosen?" he asked Abely, forcing himself to the present, the here and now as he followed the hunter along the overgrown path to the back gate.

"Before my time," Abely said with a shrug. "From what Emerson has been saying, the visions began for her months before the old Keeper died, getting stronger and stronger. The messenger came and spoke to her the night the Keeper died and she was transformed."

"So … this is nothing like that?"

Abely glanced back at him, noting the scepticism in the younger man's voice. "Heaven wasn't in the middle of civil war then," he reminded him mildly. "And that Keeper chose to end his days."

John's dark brows drew together as he considered that. "How old was she, when she became Keeper?"

"Sixteen, Emerson said."

He remembered the fear that had coursed through him when she'd told him to bring Dean to her. Remembered the stuttering of his heart against his ribs when she'd stared at his son. And the relief when she'd told them he was not the one.

He remembered how Dean had looked, still and pinched and white, under that inhuman stare.

* * *

They walked through the church yard's gates and around the small building to the house at the rear, sunlight bright on the bleached fields and the cool of the porch a welcome respite.

Jim opened the door and beckoned them inside, the pastor's gaze scraping around the empty garden suspiciously before he closed the door behind them.

"What the hell happened over there?" Abely said as he followed Jim down the long, narrow hallway to the small study next to the kitchen. "Gil said that two children were abducted!"

Jim nodded as he moved around the desk and sat down. "They were – Saffron Huxley and Jeremy Tucker. Taken from their beds."

John stared at him. "How?"

"Why?" Abely asked at the same time.

Waving a hand toward the chairs in front of the desk, Jim shook his head. "We don't know. Both homes were within the iron tracks. There was no way for a demon, even a powerful one, to cross them."

Abely's gaze dropped to the floor. "A traitor?" he asked reluctantly.

John looked at him in astonishment, turning to Jim. "What?"

"It's possible," Jim said tiredly. "Probable. No way of finding out who it was, not at this stage."

The image filled John's mind again, black and redly throbbing behind his open eyes. He shoved it away with difficulty as Abely asked the priest about the Council's decision on Umpleby.

"The night the children were taken, he had two separate visions," Jim was saying. "One of them, an attack by a group of muties on one of the isolated farms further south came to pass the following night. The other detailed the location of Daniel Elkins."

"Elkins?" John stared at him.

"The vision told him that Elkins was working with the demons, letting them into Boulder."

"Bullshit," John said, turning to look at Abely. "Screw loose about vampires, sure, but turning to demons – there's not a chance in hell Daniel would ever do such a thing!"

"Council disagreed," Jim said mildly. "They're calling for every available hunter to head west to counter the attempt to take over the city."

Abely huffed slightly, looking at Jim. "Take us out of our towns and leave 'em empty? That kind of plan?"

The priest shook his head. "That's what I thought too. It begs the question though."

"To what purpose?" John got up, moving restlessly around the room. "Who benefits from this?"

"Yes," Jim said, leaning down and pulling a bottle and glasses from the lower drawer of the desk.

"Not something we can afford to ignore," Abely said, leaning forward and taking a glass as Jim filled it. "If it's on the straight and true."

John fidgeted with his glass. Looking across the desk at him, Jim frowned. "What's wrong?"

"There is a way we could get the answers we need." Putting his glass down, John looked from Jim to Abely. "We have the traps."

He saw the flashed glance between the two older men, reluctance in Abely's face, fear in the pastor's.

"No." Jim's voice was stony. "To take that road, John, you would be imperilling your soul. It is not an option."

"We are running out of alternatives, Jim," John said stubbornly, staring at the floor. "None of this feels right, and there are more important considerations at stake here!"

"Nothing is more important than remaining on this side of that line, John!" Jim snapped at him. "This is the way the devil takes us, choosing expediency over right, taking any option to achieve what we want! Good intentions are not enough!"

"I've lost my wife," John said hoarsely, lifting his eyes to meet the priest's. "My children are in danger, have been in danger since that night – do you think there's anything I wouldn't do to ensure their safety?!"

"No." Jim looked down at his glass, the amber liquid lit by the sunshine through the window behind him. "I know that you feel pressed, John, but please …"

He looked back at the man standing before him, and John flinched inwardly at the naked plea in his eyes. "… please, do not even consider it. Your boys would be in worse danger than you could imagine and there would be nothing you could do to save them. You would be changed by the answers you seek. Evil can be contagious."

"What did the Keeper say?" Abely said into the silence that fell between the two men.

Rubbing a hand along his jaw, Jim glanced toward the hall. "She says nothing. She passed from consciousness last night. I don't know what's keeping her alive, but whatever it is, I don't think it will last much longer."

* * *

_**August 9, 1988**_

John winced slightly at the stinging on his breastbone. From the other side of the table as he checked and packed the ordnance into the capacious canvas bags, Dean caught the expression.

"It stops hurting in a day or two," he told his father prosaically, and on the other side of the room, Abely chuckled, hiding his own wince as the movement goaded a response from the fresh tattoo on his chest.

The tattoos were hidden beneath the high collars of their shirts, inked into the skin over the breastbone, between the base of the throat and extending over the thin layer of muscle that covered the rib-cage. Mina had done them the previous evening, muttering in disapproval as she'd copied the most powerful of the protective sigils into their skin.

John looked at his son, watching the smooth movement of his hands as he checked the rounds for the guns and loaded the cylinders. Dean was as meticulous about their weaponry as either of them, he thought, a little sadly. The boy knew too much and yet, still, not enough. None of them knew enough.

"Jim will be staying here, and Mina and Emerson," he said, his voice gruff to cover the thickness in his throat. "Anything seems wrong, out of the ordinary, you get them, alright?"

"Yessir."

"Watch over Millie and Sammy."

"Yessir," Dean said automatically, dark green eyes lifting to meet his father's and John ducked his head as he noted the faint irritation in his son's expression. _As if I would do anything else_, the irritation said. It was a fair enough rebuke, he knew. His oldest boy had always put those in his care first. He zipped the bag closed and took the second bag as Dean passed it to him, turning to look at the youth standing next to Abely.

"You ready, Caleb?"

Caleb nodded, swinging his bag onto a shoulder. He gave Dean a grin. "See you around, Winchester."

"Not if I see you first, Rourke," Dean told him.

"Like that's a possibility," Caleb said airily, turning on his heel and walking out before the younger boy could think of a come-back.

"We might be a week or two," John said to his son as Abely kissed Millie and turned to follow Caleb out to the rumbling hybrid that waited in front of the house. "Mina said you're doing well with the studies, I want you to keep it up."

Dean nodded, watching him pick up his little brother, Sammy's delighted squeals echoing in the room as John put him down again and kissed Millie. The familial scene brought back a memory, one almost forgotten. Shutting it carefully away, he followed John down the hall and onto the porch, hearing the footsteps of his brother and Millie behind him.

It would be quiet now, he thought, not sure if the restless and faint ache he felt was in watching his father and friends drive away, or something else, something older, more painful. Quiet and hot and muggy, he amended, pushing away the disturbing feelings and deliberately focussing his attention on the sky. Bleached almost white with the bright sunshine, it was gradually filling with great, creamy clouds, edged in deepening shades of grey and spreading out along the horizon.

A shiver rippled through him and he turned away from the porch, taking Sammy's hand and leading him back inside. It would be quiet, he told himself firmly.

* * *

_**Somewhere ...**_

He'd killed Tuck, she thought to herself, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, rocking slightly back and forth, her back scraping on the rock wall behind her. Broken his neck and thrown him down after her.

Saffron knew she was underground, somewhere. An old well, she thought, having stumbled around the circumference of the roughly circular darkness, tripping over Tuck who was still lying grotesquely bent against one wall. She couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything beside her own breath, as it rasped in and out of her throat. Her mouth was very dry. In the centre of the dirt floor, there was a small wet patch of earth. She'd pressed her fingers against it and sucked the moisture from them several times. She'd tried digging but the earth hadn't returned any more water. Just a seep.

The walls were higher than she could reach up and although rough, there were no handholds, no cracks or crevices for fingers or toes, she'd felt the whole way around, searching for anything to let her climb out. It smelled of earth, faintly metallic, the air cold and damp.

Hunger gnawed at her stomach, painful and cramping. She thought it would be the cold that killed her, eventually. Her fingers and toes were numb, the thin nightdress she'd worn to bed providing no cover at all, and Tuck's fine, lawn nightshirt, removed awkwardly by feel, his limp body heavy and uncooperative in the blackness, her horror at what she was doing making it worse, had barely added enough to have made the nightmarish effort worthwhile.

Somewhere, she knew the hunters would be looking for her, her parents and Bill and Delaney and the others. She pressed her forehead against her knees and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to concentrate on them, to get away from the cold and the hard rock. To make them hear her. Make them feel her.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

_**August 13, 1988. Nebraska**_

Mostly wooded, almost flat, baked in the heat that rose from the ground and beat down from a pale, blue sky, the open land rolled past them without variation and John wiped his hand over his face again, pushing the sweat back into his thick, black hair and scratching at the clinging drops through the greying, black beard that covered his jaw.

"I don't understand," he said to his partner, throwing a glance at Abely as the hybrid truck bounced over the corrugations in the gravel road. "How was it that the Keeper knew who you were, even though she'd never met you, and Ainslie didn't know any of the hunters, including me – I've met him twice now – who were at the meeting?"

"I don't know, John," Abely said, his eyes following the easiest path through the challenges of the road ahead of him. "It makes me uneasy as well, but I – I just don't know. Maybe that kind of power comes after awhile? Or takes practice?" He exhaled softly. "Maybe a new Keeper doesn't need to know names and faces since we're living in times when most of those folks won't survive."

John looked at the older hunter's profile, settled into lines of resignation that scared him more than the unknowns of the man who was being proclaimed guardian to their kind.

"What's wrong?" he asked unwillingly. Under any other circumstance, he and the man beside him tried not to ask personal questions of each other.

"Nothin'," Abely said, forcing lightness to his voice and relaxing his hands on the wheel.

The answer told John all he needed to know. Something about Millie, he thought, something about the private life between the two of them. And further questioning was an impossibility. He loved the wheaten-haired woman deeply but she wasn't his and in some ways, as ashamed as he was of the feeling, she was a substitute only. It was something he couldn't explain to his friend and mentor, too much emotion and need was tangled between the three of them.

"How'd they round up so many in such a short time?" he asked instead, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Abely's shoulders lower a little more.

"The order's got a few people they've been training," he said, his voice resuming its normal gravelly timbre. "Long-speakers they call 'em. Telepaths, Mina told me. The last year, they've been putting them out in any town that has more'n a few hunters, in case of need."

"Need we got," John agreed. "Telepaths. People who can read your mind?"

Abely laughed uncomfortably. "'pparently not," he said. "They, uh, transmit images, symbols, to each other. Happens instantaneously."

"I thought Gil was working on some kind of long-range communications project?"

"He is. The cable for communicating with pretty much anywhere in the country is there, some of it deteriorated, some not," Abely said with a shrug. "Needs man-power and metal, two things we're pretty short of most of the time."

"Maybe the Council should be making it a priority," John said, hearing the sourness in his voice.

"Probably should, but we got bigger problems now." He shifted slightly in the seat and frowned at the road. "If this doesn't go to plan, and –"

"We don't talk about that," John cut him off abruptly.

"Yeah, well, mostly we don't but this time I want to," the older hunter said, his voice hardening. "You see me go down, I want you to run, don't care what else is going on, you get out and get home."

"Abely, what's wrong?" This time the question came out involuntarily, a reaction too strong to control, and the older hunter sighed.

"I think there's something … wrong. With Millie."

"Why?" John asked, thinking of the woman they'd left behind.

"She's been getting tired, and I think she's been sick, but she won't tell me anything about it."

"She seemed fine to me –"

Abely nodded. "Most of the time, she does, hell, I guess she is. But …"

"You want to go back?" John turned to look at him. "I can get a ride to Boulder with someone else, we'll meet them at the state line."

"No," Abely said, his fingers curling around the wheel tightly again. "No. I'm coming." He glanced across at the younger man. "Send you into a demon's nest on your own? Not likely. Anyway, Millie'd tear me a new one if I came home without you."

John looked away, out at the thin, dry woods and the parched, golden grasses that covered the landscape as far as he could see. He missed his wife and he missed the life he'd had with her, the promise and the depth of that life and he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge how much had been torn out of him when he'd lost both … but ….

But.

He never would have known the depth of friendship he had now, if he'd still had that life. With the man beside him. With Jim. Developing deeper and stronger with Ellen and Bill. He'd never have known what it meant to combine his military training with a hunter's skills, using himself as the weapon, far beyond what he'd thought his capacity could ever reach. There were times, in this life, that he felt more alive, more … himself, he thought, than ever would have been possible in the safe and ordinary life he'd lived with Mary.

He couldn't think of that often. It was too disloyal, too much like finding something he loved in the ruin of something he'd cherished.

* * *

_**Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

The windows were wide open, the scent of the gardens below rising thickly through them but not a breath of air moved in the house, and the heat was oppressive and enervating, the sleepers' skin flushed and uncomfortable, the linen they laid on damp with their perspiration.

_The marshes glinted in the pearly morning light, and Dean kept to the raised wooden boards, zigzagging his way across the sodden ground, looking up occasionally to make sure he was still heading for the crazy, tilted house, standing on its stilts like an old woman with her skirts lifted high. In the top-most window he caught sight of the flash of red, a shiver of recognition rattling through him._

_The rain came, as it always did, soft and fine at first, then heavier, the drops stippling the silver sheets of water over and through the long sedges, hitting him and soaking through his hair, through his clothes. He looked down and ran, noticing for the first time the supple dark leather that covered his jeans from hip to ankle, curving around his legs. Thunder pealed and the wind rose, whipping the rain almost horizontal, flattening the grasses and shaking the trees –_

The scream woke him instantly and he was out of his bed, bare feet thudding on the floor before the echoes had died away completely.

Sammy.

He hit the bedroom door running, yanking it back and shooting out into the hallway. From the other end of the hall, Millie came out, her hair loose in a tangle over her shoulders, a long white nightgown billowing and gleaming in the shadows and moonlight by the window, stopping his heart for a second until she called out.

"Is it Sam?"

"Yeah, I'll get him," he called back, hearing his voice squeak and run out of air on the last word as he ran to his brother's room. She'd looked … for a second, she'd looked … like a ghost, he thought, seeing Sam sitting up in the bed, chest heaving as he sobbed.

He heard her go past the doorway as he reached the little boy, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that she would make something warm and comforting for them both but would give him the time to reassure Sammy before she appeared.

"Dean …" Sam looked up at him, his cheeks wet and his breath hitching uncontrollably. "Daddy …"

Wrapping his arms around Sam, Dean was shocked to feel how wet the boy was, his pyjamas, saturated with sweat, clinging to his skin, his hair dripping. "Sammy, sssh, it's alright, there's nothing wrong with Dad, he's okay … sssh."

He held him close, looking around the room as Sam's breathing eased and his sobs slowed. The windows were closed, he thought, perhaps it just got too hot in the room. Nightmares came easiest on hot, still air.

"Come on, we have to get you dry again," he said as Sam curled up tightly against his chest. Looking at the darker patches on the pale blue sheets, he realised that he'd have to remake the bed as well.

Millie appeared in the doorway as Dean got to his feet, Sam wrapped limpet-like around him, his brother's wet cheek pressed against his neck.

"Is he soaked?" she asked softly.

Dean nodded, walking toward the door.

"Take him to the bathroom and run him a tepid bath, Dean," she said, setting down a small pitcher of warmed milk on the nightstand. "I'll take care of the bed."

"I don' wanna bath," Sam whispered against Dean's ear as he carried him out and he shook his head.

"It'll make the dream disappear, Sammy," he told him, pushing the door to the bathroom open as he reached it. The soft, golden light from the overhead lamp banished the shadows and Sam reluctantly unwound his arms and legs from his brother, pulling off his wet clothing with difficulty as Dean turned on the taps, holding his hands under them until the temperature seemed to be right. The rush and gurgle of the spouting water filled the large, echoing room as he turned around and helped Sam out of his pants, banishing the memories of his own dream.

Once in the water, Sam decided that he liked it, ducking under and splashing his brother. Dean struggled with the relief he felt seeing Sammy smiling and the knowledge that there'd be the usual struggle to get him out again.

"What happened to our mom, Dean?" Sam asked loudly as Dean wrapped the towel around him and started to rub the water from his skin.

"She died," he said repressively. It was a conversation that he didn't want to have but one that his little brother was raising more frequently as he got older.

"I know that, but how?" Sam persisted. "Dad won't talk about it. You either."

"Because there's not much to say about it," Dean said, trying to be patient as he worked his way around the smaller boy.

"Was she as nice as Millie?" Sam asked and behind him, Dean's hands faltered, his eyes closing as memory hit him without warning, a combination of sight and sound and smell and traces of touch, a feeling of breaking inside.

"Yeah, Sammy, she was our mom," he said, trying to keep his voice even and calm. "There was nothing she wouldn't have done for us, she loved us so much."

His father had told him that, a year or two ago, when he'd asked about her. He was losing his memories of her, all bar those feelings that in combination brought back a sense of deep security, of an emotion he kept hidden at all times, too powerful for him to let out.

"I don't remember her," Sam said, half to himself, a little sadly.

He didn't know how to respond to that. What good did words do for this? How could he tell his brother that their mother had loved him, when he barely knew how to express that to himself. He believed it, but it was feeling, not words.

"She remembers you, Sammy," Millie said, coming into the bathroom with clean pyjamas. She knelt in front of him, taking the towel from Dean's hands and gently drying the little boy's hair. "She's watching over you boys, you mark my words, watching you and keeping you safe and loving you just as much now as she ever did. She's so proud of the two of you, growing into fine young men."

Getting to his feet behind Sam, Dean turned away. The idea that his mother could be watching him, watching them, fell into the category of bedtime stories so far as he was concerned. She was gone and he would never, ever get her back. His father had told him that Mary had believed in angels, guarding over them, watching over them. They hadn't done a very good job, he thought with a spurt of anger.

"Come on, the bed's clean and fresh, there's a little breeze coming through the garden and half the night still to go," Millie said, helping Sam button his shirt. "And my honeyed milk to chase away the bad dreams and help you find the good ones."

"I want to sleep with Dean," Sam said as he walked with Millie back into the hallway. Millie stopped and looked at the older boy.

Shrugging, Dean turned into his own bedroom. "It's alright with me."

"Alright, I'll bring the milk in," she said, letting Sam's hand go and watching as he thrust it demandingly at his older brother. Dean took it automatically, walking into the cooler darkness of his bedroom, Sammy trailing behind him.

The breeze moved the curtains at the windows and Dean inhaled deeply, tasting the freshness on it. He straightened his covers, and pulled them back for his brother.

"No wriggling around all the time," he warned Sam. In the bed, Sam nodded owlishly, blue-eyes-turning-to-hazel wide and obedient for once.

"And no waving your arms around," Dean added, going around to the other side of the bed after he'd tucked his brother in. The last time Sam had shared the bed, he'd been woken twice, thumped in the back of the head by the little boy's arms.

"I promise," Sam said.

"Alright."

Millie came in and handed Sam a small glass, passing another one across the bed to Dean. The milk was no longer really warm but it was sweet and rich, and it filled him, settling his stomach and the thoughts that were pressing against him. He gave her back the glass as she leaned over to kiss him goodnight. Her scent wasn't like his mother's but it was light and fresh, and it surrounded him for that second, driving out every other thought, instilling the same sense of security as he pushed the pillows behind his head. He watched from slitted eyes as Millie went around the bed and kissed Sam, taking his glass and wiping the white moustache from his upper lip with a breathy giggle.

Sam sighed as he wriggled down under the sheet, his knee curving out to touch Dean's leg. It was enough contact, Dean knew, enough to make Sam feel not-alone in the night. As he closed his eyes, he saw the silver flash of water through the grass and heard the faint rumble of thunder.

* * *

_**August 15, 1988. Boulder, Colorado**_

"I don't like it," Abely said, scanning the dark buildings within the view of the field glasses unhappily.

"It's a trap," John agreed, leaning back against the low parapet wall that surrounded the roof.

Bill looked at them. "Do we spring it or avoid it?"

"Spring it," Abely said. "There're ten men and women down there who are walking into it, we're not about to let them do that."

They edged back across the open rooftop, working their way through the shadows and under the levels of the walls.

Ainslie had devised and relayed the plan, which, until the layout of the city was seen, had seemed sound. Was that a missing piece of vision on the part of the almost-Keeper, John wondered, or something more sinister? Looking at the still-rounded face of the youth, it was difficult to believe that subterfuge could be a part of his nature, not from a sense of goodness, but from sheer lack of worldly experience.

John had looked again at the old Keeper, before they'd left Blue Earth. Old was now a description that could be applied to her. Her face had fallen in on the bones underneath, wrinkles seaming her skin daily, almost hourly, the fine fuzz of hair over her scalp lightening from black to silver and loosening in delicate falls like that of a cat, shedding its winter coat.

Ainslie hadn't changed all that much, he considered, in retrospect. No signs that immortality was infiltrating his cells as it was leaving hers. Was that the usual thing? No one knew. No one alive now had seen the transition from Keeper to Keeper when she had become.

Visions, they all said. Visions that came to be. Beginning in the months leading to the Keeper's passing. Why had Ainslie's visions only begun when they'd found the Keeper and brought her to Blue Earth? Were the angels more pivotal to the process than they'd imagined or known?

Too many questions with no possibility of answers, he thought, a caustic anger burning along his veins. There was a way but the cost was too high.

_Was it?_

Was it ever too high to protect the people he loved? To protect his _sons_?

"John!" Abely's subvocalised whisper drew him back and he ducked into the stairwell, leaning back against the wall.

The three men stood close together, mingled scents of sweat and leather, machine oil and butane enclosing them in the hot, still air of the building.

"The front of the building is exposed, and we'll need someone for the courtyard as well," Abely said, his voice so low that not even a hiss was echoed in the brick and concrete space. "Lorena was taking the other side of the square, what about the others?"

"Rufus and Abe are to the east, coming in with seven others," Bill murmured. "Moses and Snatch have ten with them, on the southern side."

John watched Abely's face screw up as he calculated the numbers. He thought of the streets below them, the buildings they'd seen the demons moving through. "The trap for us can become a trap for them as well," he said slowly. "If we can get down to those junctions quickly enough."

* * *

Fire raged through the buildings, licking along the streets, and John ignored the screams that filled the night, shifting his partner's weight over his shoulder as he staggered along the alley, heading blindly for the darkness that lay beyond the small city.

Traps within traps within traps, he thought incoherently. Demons pouring from the doors and windows, their laughter rising as the bodies they'd inhabited had gone down, then smoke had filled the narrow streets and alleys and the screams had started in every quadrant surrounding the square.

More than they'd expected. Too many for the small force of hunters. He ducked his head as the wind generated from the flames backed and the smell of blood filled his nostrils.

"Ah-ah-ah, not leaving so soon!"

John stumbled as the man appeared in front of him, wide mouth grinning and flat black eyes reflecting the flames of the burning building behind him. His arm shot out, the hydraulic gears whirring and a long stream of water hit the demon in the face, steaming and blistering the skin and filling the mouth as it opened wide in a howling shriek.

"Winchester!"

Power, heavy and irresistible, hit John's chest, shoving him back against the building and he lost his grip on Abely, the hunter grunting as he toppled to the ground. John felt himself lifted, his armour sparking as he was forced rapidly up the wall, arms and legs pressed by agonising strength into the brickwork.

A woman stood in front of him, middle-aged and sagging, her clothing in tatters around her pale, doughy body, her eyes black. She gestured sharply at him and he felt the bones of his ribcage creak as the pressure increased on them, grinding him into the wall.

"No one left alive tonight," the demon told him, taking a step closer. "All dead, all the hunters, all of those who stand in the way –"

Blinding pain filled him as the leather and steel armour over his chest ribboned and fell to the ground in long, blood-edged strips. The invisible claws cut through the harness and he tightened his fist, feeling the weight of the articulated arm fall against his hand.

"Don't count on it."

The demon stared at him as something emerged from its chest. John narrowed his eyes smartly when the body was suddenly lit up inside, a boiling cauldron of carmine and magenta and brilliant gold bubbling under the skin, throwing the skeleton into plain view, spilling from eyes and nose and mouth as its knees sagged and the man standing behind it pulled a short, thick, black blade from its back.

He didn't have time to brace himself as he fell to the ground, the loosened, armoured arm thrust back up into shoulder and the sound of the bone breaking lost in the roaring of the fires in the streets nearby. Darkness closed around his vision as he rolled to one side and looked at Abely.

"Come on, John," the slim hunter said next to him. "Get on your feet, we gotta get out of here."

"Elkins, what the hell …"

"Hell's about right," Daniel told him, gripping his left shoulder and pulling him upright. The vampire hunter turned and waved and John saw a man and woman running toward them from the shadows. He didn't recognise either of them.

"Abely – not leaving Abely!" he gasped as the woman lifted his arm and pulled it over her shoulder.

"Keep your shirt on," Daniel said dryly, bending to take one of Abely's arms as the other man lifted the other. "No one's getting left tonight."

John watched as they lifted Abely between them, arms locked around his partner's waist. Elkins looked at him.

"Get going, we got a lot of work to get through tonight."

* * *

Candlelight flickered against the stone walls and between the altar and first row of pews, a raised, circular stone hearth held a fire, radiating light and warmth where the worst of the injured were lying. The stone church was filled with people – hunters, John recognised slowly – many of them unmoving on the floor and pews, the uninjured moving between them, carrying water and dressings, speaking in low voices as they tended the wounded.

John held his arm tucked lightly against his chest, the woman beside him ducking out from under his left arm as they entered the transept.

"Delia, get the padre over here," Elkins called out and John saw a young woman rise from beside a wounded man and cross the stone floor quickly to the rooms behind the altar.

Trenton and Gus came up to them, taking Abely from Daniel and the other hunter, carrying him closer to the hearth and setting him on a thin pallet on the floor. John watched for a moment as Delia returned with an old man, his long black robes belted at the waist and skirling around his feet as he hurried to kneel beside Abely. White hair framed a square, tanned face, the lens of the fragile, wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose flashing as he turned his head to issue a harsh, staccato order.

"Come on," Elkins said to John brusquely. "Need to set that arm."

He followed Daniel around the rows of pews and into a smaller room to one side. The room had been hastily cleared, tables and chairs pushed aside to one wall and the centre taken up with long, narrow benches. Daniel gestured for him to sit and pulled a bag from the table, dropping it on the floor as he sat next to John and looked over the hydraulic arm.

Pulling a bottle from the bag, he uncorked it and handed it to John. "Take a belt, this is going to hurt like a sonofabitch," he told him gruffly.

The liquid in the bottle was clear and went down like battery acid, scouring John's throat and igniting a deep heat in his stomach. He handed the bottle back, coughing, his eyes tearing at the fumes.

"How'd you know?" he wheezed when he could breathe again.

"Belthorpe and Morton came and found me," Daniel said, recorking the bottle and gently unbuckling the greave and glove around John's wrist and elbow. "Told me about Ainslie and the vision."

"You didn't believe it?"

"I wasn't sure, not at first," Elkins admitted. "But then we got a lot of demon signs and I thought it might be better to be safe than sorry. Umpleby a Keeper? Not fucking likely."

John's face paled as Daniel removed the armoured arm slowly, sweat popping out on his forehead and trickling down the back of his neck as he set his teeth together, locking his scream in his throat. Daniel glanced at him and kept talking.

"We laid a number of hidden traps, around the city, wherever I could think they wouldn't be seen and found. Then Charlotte arrived, and I knew for sure."

John looked the question at him and Elkins gave him a casual shrug, mouth turning up at the corner. "An old friend. Charlotte's from the order, in Utah. She arrived just before the demons did, had a hard crossing. She couldn't get hold of the others, not even using the long-speakers and it was worrying her."

"Did they know of Ainslie's visions?" John gritted as with a final small tug, the weaponised arm slid free of his hand and the ends of the humerus ground together. "About – you?"

"She'd heard about that," Daniel said, cutting through the heavy cotton of John's shirt with his knife. "Didn't believe it."

"Lucky."

"No such thing as luck, John, not in this business." He frowned at the man's shoulder. "Better lie down, I'll need some leverage to pull that back."

He pulled out a thick strip of leather, sewn double and handed it to John. "On three, alright?"

Pushing the leather between his teeth, John nodded and closed his eyes.

"One," Daniel counted, then pulled down on the hunter's wrist with one hand, the other gripping just below the shoulder hard as he felt the bone twist and move back into line with the other end.

"Three."

John fought the waves of nausea and darkness that were threatening to overwhelm him, his breath coming through the leather gag in his teeth in huffing grunts as he tried to back the pain away. He barely noticed Daniel's hands, gentle again, wrapping a thick wad of cotton padding around the top of the arm and a starch-soaked bandage over it, dribbling water over the layers slowly and carefully.

"Charlotte brought us the blades," he continued, his eyes flicking to the half-rolled up eyes of the man next to him. "Kill any hellspawn, not just send them back to Hell, but kill them stone dead. Kurdish, she says. Old."

"The light –" John groaned around the leather.

Daniel nodded. "Burns up the demon, inside of the body. Gotta be a fatal entry, which means we lose the meatsuits but you can't have everything."

The starch hardened again quickly in the warm, dry air and Daniel nodded to himself as he felt the bandage shrink slightly and stiffen under his fingers. He continued the dressing around the shoulder and under the arm, encasing it all to prevent any movement.

"H-how many –?" John's eyes opened a little more and he rolled them around to look at Elkins.

"Lost thirteen," Daniel said tightly. "Maybe more by the time we're finished." He looked down at him. "Lorena said Umpleby disappeared, before you left."

Nodding slightly, John pushed the gag out of his mouth with his tongue. "Yeah."

"You want another belt?" Daniel looked over the rapidly setting cast critically then pulled aside the remaining shreds of shirt and leather over John's chest. "I haven't got anything other than that moonshine for stopping the pain."

"No." John closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. "Just do whatever you have to."

"You'll need this again," Daniel said, lifting the leather strip.

Even the leather didn't keep the scream in when Daniel poured the alcohol over the open gouges transecting John's chest.

* * *

_A city on fire. Faces, slack and open-eyed and unmoving. Faces she knew. A thick cord of black smoke, ribboning up into a black sky, translucent against the rising flames, blotting out the stars as it got higher. Screams of anguish and the silence of the dead._

Saffron curled tighter around herself, trying to stop herself from shaking. She felt light-headed, not sure if she was awake or sleeping, the vivid and confused images playing out against the blackness surrounding her, whether her eyes were open or closed. A chaos of past and present and fever dreams, she thought.

_Behind the inferno of the city, detail-less jagged shapes rose_. Mountains, she decided after several minutes. A city in the mountains.

She gasped as the image spiralled suddenly inward, sickening in the intensity of the rolling movement, disorienting in its speed, her hair fluttering back from her face, wind pressing against her skin as she was pulled through the town and the flames to a street facing a broad square, to a building, to a doorway.

_In the shadows of a building's doorway, a man and a young woman stood, watching the knives drive into the people in the circles, the red-gold light blazing like torches in their flesh, dying as the dead vessels dropped to the ground. The man's eyes were narrowed but against the shadow they glowed yellow, lambent fire that outlined the fair lashes and edged the aquiline curve of his nose. The young woman's eyes were black, corner to corner, and didn't move from the sight in front of her, her expression a disturbing blend of fury and arousal, her lips parted slightly, the tip of her tongue resting between them._

_The man turned, one hand flashing out to grip the hair of the woman, pulling her head back as his arm snaked around her hips and dragged her close to him. Saffron stared, unable to shut out the sight of his mouth hovering over the woman's, a thick, black tongue, long as a snake, inserting itself between her lips as he pushed her back against the wall, his hips grinding into hers._

* * *

_**August 22, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota**_

Dean stood in the parlour, head tilted to one side, looking at his father through one eye. The other was covered by a thick cloth filled with ice.

"John, you need to deal with this!" Millie said, hands on her hips as she looked from Dean to his father. "I've had that Belthorpe woman at me since her boy went home!"

John looked at his son carefully. Aside from the darkening swelling covering one side of his face, he looked pretty intact, he thought.

"You get that from that the boys at school?" he asked, leaning back against the cushions on the sofa and easing the sling across his chest.

Dean nodded, his lips compressing as he hid a wince, the movement shifting the ice held within the cloth and a corner pressing hard against his swollen eye.

"Yessir."

"What do they look like?"

"John!"

John glanced sheepishly at Millie, and back at his son. "Fair fight?"

Dean lifted his chin. "Not really. There were only three of them."

In the armchair by the window Abely hastily turned his laugh into a cough as Millie swung around and glared at him.

"This is not funny," she said, her gaze flashing back to John and catching him as he tried to hide his smile. "He could have been badly injured – or one of the other boys could've –"

"I got this, Millie," John said, schooling his expression into seriousness again. "Sam looks like he needs some lunch."

She pinned him with a blue-eyed stare for a long moment then sniffed and turned around, holding her hand to Sam imperiously as she headed for the door. Sam took it reluctantly, looking back over his shoulder at his father and brother as he was pulled from the room.

"What happened?" John asked.

Dean shrugged. "Not much. It just two of them to start, I didn't see the third one until he blindsided me."

"First rule."

"Always be aware of the enemies you don't see," Dean said, letting his gaze drop to the floor with a soft exhale.

He looked up again as the sound of boots came from the porch, followed by a hard knocking at the front door. Abely met John's eyes.

"Elkins."

"You alright?" John asked his son and Dean nodded.

"Yessir."

"Go let 'em in and get Millie to feed you." John said and Dean turned away, heading for the door. "And Dean," he added.

The boy stopped at the door and looked back.

"When you get to the kitchen, try and look like you just got roasted, okay?"

"Yessir," Dean said, struggling to keep both his voice and face expressionless. He walked out, pulling the parlour door to behind him.

"Three of them," Abely said musingly. "Not bad."

"He got bushwhacked," John countered mildly. "He goes in too sure of himself. Every time."

"He's nine, John. He'll learn." Abely stretched cautiously as they heard the front door open and the boots enter the hall. "How do you want to handle this?"

"One step at a time," John answered, turning his head to look at the door as the hunters came in, led by Jim Murphy.

"What?" Abely looked at the haggard expression on Jim's face.

"The Keeper's dead."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

* * *

_**September 29, 1988. Omaha, Nebraska.**_

John pressed himself back against the wall, deeper into the shadows as he heard the voices at the end of the street. From the east, a faintly moving air brought tendrils of fog, swirling along the ground and rising to embrace the dirty yellow gas lamps with haloes of moisture. The thick scent of the mud banks and the swampy ground between the small town and the river filled his nostrils and throat and he swallowed against an involuntary rise of bile at the rank odours of decomposition.

The gas lamps did not flicker or fade at the approach of hellspawn, but the lights in the windows of the inn across the street, which were powered by the barely-heard steam engine in the basement, did. He noted it dispassionately, another sign, another warning in his mental checklist. The last month had expanded and deepened his knowledge until those tells of the presence of demons were almost second-nature, acknowledged and filed away without requiring thought.

A raucous laugh echoed from the walls of the buildings, and he picked out three distinctive voices, even through the muffling effect of the thickening fog. A block down and on the other side of the narrow, cobble-stone road, Pattie and Abe were waiting as well. John turned his head fractionally, his gaze lifting to the upper storey windows of the inn. From the third level a faint flash appeared.

He stepped out of the shoulder-wide alley, heavy boots clocking on the stones and the three men and one woman ahead of him turned around. They were hardly visible at first, vaporous shadows through diaphanous mist, then they stepped toward him and he saw their eyes, glistening with reflections of the murky pool of light from the street lamp. All black.

Only the one on the left had any inkling of what was happening, John thought. The others were smiling, avaricious expressions twisting the features of their human vessels into depraved masks, lascivious tongues darting out to lick over reddened, bloody lips.

The soft whirr of the gears was muted by the fog as well, but nothing could dampen the booming cannonade as he aimed and fired salt-packed rounds at them, his mouth twitching slightly under the half-mask as their expressions changed from arrogant complacency to enraged surprise and their screams filled the street.

In the cacophony of gunfire and screeching, none of them noticed the thud of bootsteps or the rattle and bang of the simple two-wheeled cart behind them, and John stepped to one side as Abe lifted the brass nozzle from the back, unreeling it fast, holding it up as water fattened the canvas hose, spurting out and dousing the demon-infested vessels in thick streams of holy water. On the driver's seat, Pattie's mouth was stretched out in a bright, humourless smile as she pumped the water enthusiastically from the hundred gallon tank next to the reel.

Steam rose from the bodies, mingling with the cold, dense fog, the dampness in the air cutting the stomach-turning smells of burning and blistering flesh. The demons ran in blind and panicked confusion between the hunters, gouged and peppered with salt and iron bearings, and the cart, repeatedly saturated by the blessed liquid that charred and boiled their skin. On cue, Bobby and Rufus appeared from the inn's doorway, each bearing glowing rods of iron, the ends worked into brands, their faces grim.

The binding sigil, _ALLAR_, had been a part of the angel's message to the Council and the Keeper, Jim had told John after the final meeting. A circle, intersected on one side by a straight line, smaller circles at either end and one on the intersection itself, it was, Jim had confided, an Enochian sigil used by the angels to bind demons into the flesh of the vessels they invaded to prevent escape. And, the priest had added, with a somewhat gruesome wink, it ensured that the demon was eternally trapped within even the smallest particles of that flesh, be it ash or bone or a worm's castings left in the earth.

Bobby stepped forward, lowering the brand to intercept one of the demons running for him. The sudden hiss of the iron hitting the vessel's clothing, burning through it as if it were paper, and the ensuing high-pitched and rising shriek, cut through the panic of the others. Rufus swung his rod around as the demon woman in front of him spat and surged toward him, his reflexes dropping the iron precisely as she attempted to slide under it, the glowing metal catching her squarely on the forehead.

John watched her eyes roll back in her head, the black disappearing, and he forced himself to keep his gaze fixed on her face as pale blue irises appeared, wide with agony. She was an innocent, he thought, his stomach roiling with nausea. She screamed and fainted, the flesh on her forehead rising red and thick, and the stench of the hot iron and cooked skin clouded the air more densely than the fog.

Abe turned and lifted a hessian sack from the cart, passing one end of the heavy, iron chain it contained to John and feeding out the lengths as Rufus and Bobby burned the sigils into the remaining two demons. He wound the chain around them twice, pinning their arms to their sides, not looking at the raw, weeping meat of their arms and faces and chests, keeping his focus on the engraved links and the round lead seals that closed the lengths as Abe fastened them, each vessel trussed tightly. He memorised the intricate designs, refusing to acknowledge what – or why - he was doing. The demons gibbered and screamed, cajoled and denigrated, struggling against the chain and the seals, and cursing their captors to Hell's deepest levels.

Sitting down on the seat, Pattie clicked to the horse and drove away, leaving the prisoners with the four hunters.

"Burned up, didn't she?" the voice of the demon was low, hoarse and bubbling, beside and behind him.

John's head snapped around as he registered the words, staring into the flat, black eyes. "What did you say?"

"Burned up, above you, nothing you could do," it crooned softly, eyes half-closing. "The smell was terrible, her meat cooking as she was –"

"Winchester!" Rufus strode across to him, one hand reaching out and gripping his shoulder tightly. "John!"

"She exploded into flame and you couldn't move –"

"What the hell do you know?!" John yelled at it, pulling free of Turner's grasp, leaning close to the demon.

"Not the first, not the last," it chuckled breathily against his skin. "His families."

Hands closed around John's arm, around his chest, and he was dragged backward, away from the demon who continued to smile at him, lipless mouth widening, black eyes bright between the bleeding and weeping fissures of its face.

"Demons lie," Rufus snapped next to his ear, pulling him back to the doorway of the inn. "They look inside your unguarded mind and pluck out what eats at you and they lie about it."

"No, that's what happened –" John protested, struggling against the united strength of Turner and Quick.

"Doesn't matter," Bobby stepped close to him, blocking his view of the grinning demon. "Doesn't matter if bits of it are true, John. Rufus is right. They lie. To make you suffer, so they can drink your pain."

"You gotta let it go, son," Abe grunted, holding the armoured arm. "Shut them out."

"I – I–" John stammered helplessly, shoulders slumping as he ducked his head. "They know. What happened." He lifted his gaze to Bobby, staring at him. "I have to know."

Bobby flicked a fast sideways glance at Rufus, and John saw something pass between the two men.

"What happened was that your family was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Bobby said forcefully. He turned and gestured to the demons. "Like those folks. Nothing more to it than that."

"No, I –"

"Pattie?" Rufus called out to the slender woman as she walked back up the street toward them. "Take John inside, get a shot down him and bring him out when he's thinkin' straight again."

John shook his head. "I'm alright."

"Mebbe you are, mebbe not," Bobby said with a shrug. "Take five anyway, we'll finish up here and get the bodies loaded. You're a good hunter, John," he added, pushing the brim of his cap back a little. "But we need cool heads here."

"I'm fine!"

"Then you won't mind havin' a drink on me," Rufus said mildly, pushing him slightly as Pattie stepped up to them.

"Come on," Turner's daughter said, slipping her arm through John's. "Just wasting time arguing with them."

John allowed her to draw him into the inn reluctantly, his thoughts churning. Even if they were right, he thought, blinking as he entered the thick fug of smoke and warmth and odours that filled the inn's main bar, it didn't change anything. The demons knew, what had happened, what it'd meant. He could make them tell him, with the holy water and the chains and the salt and iron.

As they moved through the press of people, he didn't notice the crowd easing away from them, from him. He was completely unaware that his expression held a murderous determination.

* * *

An hour later, sitting at end of the table with the hunters, and barely hearing the discussion between them, John struggled with the thoughts that were chasing through his mind, his head propped in his hands. Not thoughts, he recognised sourly. The one thought. The same thought he'd been over and over, a thousand times now.

"No, she's not ready," Rufus said, his voice rising slightly.

"It's the safest position we got," Bobby argued, his roughened growl rising to match the other man's. John registered the shift from debate to argument and looked down the table at them. "And we don't have that many options."

"I said, no."

"Dad, it's not your decision," Pattie said calmly, sitting in the chair across from him. "And I am ready."

"I decide when you are," Rufus said to a point halfway between his daughter and his friend.

"Look, you might be gettin' a bit over-protective here –"

"Singer, how many kids you got?" Rufus cut him off sharply.

Bobby was silent and John turned his head to look at him.

"That's what I thought," Rufus snapped. "So butt the hell out of this conversation."

"You can say it as often and as loudly as you want, Dad," Pattie said, getting to her feet. "But you're only wasting your breath and all of our time." She looked at Bobby. "I'll be there."

Rufus and Bobby watched her turn and walk across the room, her shoulders stiff and straight and her head held high. When she disappeared through the doorway, Rufus turned and looked at the other hunter.

"You better be right about her being safe, Singer."

He got up and walked out, moving slowly across the room as if he'd gained twenty years in the last few minutes, John thought.

"Come on, John. Get some shut-eye," Bobby said, getting to his feet. "Got about four hours and then we're on."

Nodding, John made no move to rise and after a moment, Bobby shrugged and turned away.

There were no more than five more demons left in the town, John knew. They would trap them in front of the church and bind them and burn them, as they had the others. The demons could no more escape from the particles of ash that was all that remained of the meatsuits than they could from the flesh and blood and bone of their victims. It was the closest thing they could manage to destroying them completely.

If he could get one, just one and ask it questions, he thought, he might get a lead on why his family had been chosen. Running both hands through his hair, he tipped back in the chair and closed his eyes. Jim might be right. Bobby might be right. But it still seemed worth the risk.

* * *

_**October 4, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

Rolling restlessly in the big bed, John felt Millie's arm slip around him, felt her breath against his neck.

"What is it?" she whispered.

He shook his head, unable to articulate – unwilling to say, he corrected himself tersely – the tangle of thought and emotion that wouldn't let him go.

On the long drive back to Blue Earth, alone in the black car, he'd felt himself alternate between shock and blinding migraine, filled with the images of the night before, forcing him to the side of the road to vomit then sit shivering in reaction with his memories and fears. It'd taken almost seven hours longer than he'd calculated and he found that he'd missed Abely when he returned, the older hunter had already headed out for St Louis with Daniel and Moses to chase down a reported sighting of Umpleby.

"You said it wasn't anybody's fault, John," Millie reminded him gently, moving back as he rolled toward her. In the white moonlight that spilled into the room through the open window, her expression was worried.

"It wasn't," he croaked, clearing his throat and putting his arm around her to draw her close to him. He breathed in the scent of her skin and her hair, and turned his head, letting his lips brush over her smooth shoulder.

The plan had worked almost perfectly, almost routinely, the demons caught in Solomon's trap and surrounded, the water cart dousing them, the salt shells holding them in tormented dementia as Pattie and Abe and he had built the pyre around the circle. For a split second, before they'd lit the wood soaked in pressed vegetable oil, the town's gas supply had faltered and every light in the square had gone out. The darkness had lasted barely the length of a heart beat, but it'd been enough for Pattie to have taken a single step back, just one foot over the line of the trap.

And they'd fallen on her.

His eyes squeezed tightly shut as the memory rose again and he fought to banish it, to bury it.

Rufus had been right. She hadn't been ready. On that endless twisting and turning road home, that thought had permeated everything and he'd thought of his sons, fear freezing him into immobility, flushing him with a hot, fierce determination, warring with his rage inside of him.

They would be ready. They would know everything, every danger, every possibility. He would _not_ lose them the same way. He would not _lose_ them at all.

Lying there, oblivious of the steel rigidity of his body, muscles contracted with his determination, locked tight by his fear and the deeply-buried doubt that he could protect those he loved, the memory played on his mind … _she had been flung upward, back bowed impossibly, the demons' powers bound but the physical strength of their vessels enough._ It had been Abe who'd lit his torch, thrusting it into the oily, stacks of wood and the fire had caught immediately, etching the vision in front of them into every hunter's mind in lines of gold, the rictus of agony and terror on the young woman's face excruciatingly illuminated by the flames, the agonised scream of her father rising and drilling into the ears of everyone there. It'd taken all of them to stop Turner from throwing himself into the fire. It'd destroyed more than just a young woman's life.

Sluggishly, he began to feel again, registering the fingers stroking him softly, bringing him back to the here, to the now, helping him to find a way out of the memory and the images that were associated with it, images where it wasn't Pattie lifted up and torn apart in the circle, but Dean … and Sam.

Slowly, the delicate and unobtrusive sensation unlocked his muscles and he could breathe again, his chest rising and falling in uneven, shuddering jerks, pumping the stale, oxygen-less air from his lungs and sucking in fresh, filled with her scent and the sweet smell of the night jasmine from the garden below the window and the long-blooming gardenias that clustered like penitents under the protection of the vines.

Gradually, he became aware that her touch was more than comforting, that it was stirring him. He sucked in a deeper breath, recognising a building need to feel, a growing desperation to shut down his thoughts. He caught her hand and twisted himself over, kissing her hungrily as desire rose with a volcanic rush. After a moment's startled resistance, Millie lifted her arms to wrap around his shoulders, returning the kiss with an equal ardour. She arched under him as his hands slid over her body, possessive and knowing, his knee forcing her legs apart and the deep, rumbling groan from him lighting her up almost as much as his touch.

Within that involuntary sound was a plea, familiar to any woman who loved men. A plea to take it away, to dull it down, the pain and confusion and torment, to wash it clean in overwhelming intimacy, a cocoon of touch that drove the world back and banished everything bar the immediate, electrifying need of skin against skin, the formless rhythm and pulse of give and take, the mutual striving for release and mindless peace Nature had slyly provided to ensure the survival of the species.

John clung on to cobwebby threads of control when she arched up, her body tightening around him. He could hear his breath rasping in his throat, feel sweat sheening his skin, each of the deeper shudders that punctuated her drawn-out climax dragging him closer to the edge. His eyes were screwed shut against seeing her face, lost in sensuality. Seeing her like that took him every time. He was losing himself in the quickening every other sense even without sight to undo him, until he couldn't hold on any longer, the long muscles of back and legs contracting sharply, heat and pressure alchemising into waves of euphoric pleasure that spiralled out, taking his strength and his breath and shattering every thought, sending the pieces into the black where he wouldn't have to think about them again.

For a little while, at least.

* * *

_**November 19, 1988.**_

The entire classroom was silent, the children sitting like statues, their attention fixed on the man standing in the doorway, talking softly to Alleyn. Looking at the priest's face, Dean knew that whatever he'd come to say, it wasn't good.

Alleyn nodded once and turned to face the room. "Moss and Olivia, please pack up your work and accompany Pastor Jim."

Heads turned to watch the boy and girl gather their schoolwork and belongings, everything thrust hastily into their satchels, and walk slowly down the narrow aisles between the small desks to the front of the room.

The teacher shepherded them out of the room, head ducked low and his words little more than a murmur. Dean saw Olivia stop suddenly at the threshold, her gaze snapping up to Alleyn's drawn expression then flashing to Jim's, her face paling with shock.

"Moly," Hum whispered to him from the next desk. "What's that about?"

Watching Alleyn place a hand gently on Olivia's shoulder and ease her toward Jim, Dean swallowed against a surge of certain misgiving.

"Nothing good," he said in response, his voice low.

Alleyn stared through the doorway for several minutes before he reached out and closed the door, turning back to look at his classroom.

"Classes are done for today," he told them, his voice cracking slightly. His gaze fell to the floor and he cleared his throat, the large Adam's apple working up and down before he lifted his head. "Pack up, go home. I'll see you all here tomorrow morning."

In the disbelieving hush that followed that unprecedented announcement, Dean saw the first inklings seep into his classmates, saw them glance at each other, felt their fears and uncertainties flicker around the room.

"Come on," he said to Hum, pushing the books and notes that littered his desk together into an untidy pile and sweeping them into his leather satchel. "Let's get out of here."

Hum stared at him for a moment, then hurriedly gathered his work, shoving it randomly into his bag. At the desk on the other side of him, Mikey looked across and did the same and the three boys rose together, picking their way through the milling children to the door.

Dean glanced at the teacher as he passed the big, square desk at the front of the room. Alleyn was leaning on it, staring at the neat piles of books and carefully written note sheets that covered it. He lifted his head slightly as if he felt Dean's attention, his face bleak and his eyes bright. For a moment, their gazes met and Dean felt a chill race down his spine, then the teacher looked away, his shoulders hunching higher under the closely-tailored worsted suit and Dean followed Hum and Mikey from the room.

At the end of the corridor, in the open vestibule next to the front doors, Stan was waiting, and Dean slowed as he saw the boy's face, pale and frightened, with no trace of the animosity that usually filled it when they came across each other. The sounds of the other children, their footsteps and the banging of bags and doors faded into nothing as he realised that Stan was waiting for him.

He stopped next to him and Hum looked back, wheeling around when he saw them.

"Curdy's dead," Stan said to Dean, oblivious to Hum's hulking frame bearing down on him. "Gulpidge, Lorena MacKinnon, Davies and … and Ricky's dad too."

"What about Abely?" Dean asked tightly, his heart beat the only sound he could hear clearly, thumping against his ears.

Stan shook his head. "I haven't heard."

"They back?"

"Just now," Stan confirmed, his hand snapping out to grab Dean's arm as he swung away. "Dean, less than half of them that went –"

He looked at the boy's eyes, seeing the redness in them, the lower lids puffy. "Tell Ricky I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry about his dad."

Stan nodded and let him go and he shot past a startled Hum and Mikey, hitting the school steps and leaping down them, his gaze scouring the groups of kids standing in the yard, finding the one he sought.

"Sammy!" he shouted his brother's name and saw the little boy turn around, eyes opening wide with relief as they saw him.

His heart was still beating too loud, he could hardly hear himself think over the strident pounding as he hurried across the yard to him, Sam's hand thrusting straight into his outstretched one.

"We have to get home," he said, heading for the gate and the laneway that led up to the church and their house.

"What happened?" Sam asked, his breath whooping in his throat as he half-ran to keep up with his brother.

"I don't know yet," Dean told him, glancing down and slowing a little. "Was anyone taken out of your class?"

Sam nodded, his fingers tightening on Dean's. "Missy and Robin had to leave early. Miz Michaels took them home."

Dean swallowed. Missy and Robin were Erwin Tilford's girls. Fifteen had gone, not just from Blue Earth, but from Wayne and Humboldt too. After Boulder, the Council had met again, and the plan had changed, teams going out all the time, to the towns further away. His father had been on two demon hunts in the last month, this had been Abely's third haul out.

He looked down at his brother's face. "Come on, we have to hurry."

* * *

Sam was puffing by the time they reached the top of the long, gentle hill and Dean slowed again, letting him catch his breath. They cut through the church garden and across the fields, and Dean pushed his little brother ahead of him through the squeaking lych gate, the garden's dying vegetation crackling underfoot as they ran up the path to the glass-paned doors at the rear.

In the warmth of the back parlour, the fire burning cheerfully on the narrow hearth, he felt himself sag as Abely looked up at the same time as his father, both men lifting brows quizzically at their early appearance.

"Let out early," Dean said, dropping his satchel on the floor and walking slowly across the room. "Jim came to the school, took the Curdy kids home."

John looked at his son's face, seeing the reason for Sammy's slight breathlessness under the stoic expression.

"Sammy, I do believe Millie's just made a batch of cookies," he said to his youngest. "Why don't you go and check?"

Sam dropped his bag and turned for the door, hesitating when he realised that his brother wasn't right behind him. Dean felt the pause and smiled at him.

"I'll be there in a sec, Sam," he said, the lie slipping out easily enough. Maybe not a second, but not long enough to warrant a stab of remorse.

Nodding a little reluctantly, the little boy opened the door and went through, and they heard his footsteps go down the hall.

Dean looked back at Abely. "You alright?" he asked, looking at the man's face.

Abely leaned back in the chair, his face creasing as he smiled. "Yep, kid, I'm fine."

His face was thinner, Dean thought critically. Shadowed around the eyes.

"What happened?" He looked from Abely to his father. "Stan said less than half made it out?"

John nodded as Abely glanced a question at him. There was no point to hiding things from them, he thought. They were affected by what had happened as much as anyone else.

"It was trap," Abely said bluntly. "The city was empty, of people at least," he added, getting to his feet and going to the hearth to poke at the burning logs and add another. "There were plenty of demons."

Dean took that in, frowning. "What happened to the people?"

He saw the man's hesitation and knew that Abely was going to lie about that.

"Don't know," Abely said with a shrug. "Didn't see any of them."

Switching his gaze to his father, the sense of the lie was stronger. John was staring past him, his gaze on the cold, grey garden outside. It meant that whatever happened to the people of the city, it'd been bad. And, he considered, it'd been final.

"Stan said that Lorena was killed," he said, looking back at Abely's broad back. "What about the rest of the Council?"

John blinked at the astute observation. In front of the fire, Abely turned around, his expression half-quizzical, half-amused.

"Four from the Council were killed," he confirmed. "We burned the city to the ground on the way out. Voting'll be next week, if they get organised."

"Dean," John said, looking at his son. "None of this leaves the room, you understand?"

"Yessir," Dean said automatically. If Caleb were here, it might not have been so easy, but there was no one here he could talk to about this. No one, he thought, who'd understand.

"Go see if Millie's finished her baking," John told him, the dismissal clear.

Dean turned for the door and went through, drawing it closed gently behind him. He wasn't sure what it meant, that the city, once holding more than fifty thousand people, had been empty when the hunters had arrived. Abely had been lying when he'd said he didn't know what had happened to them. An image rose in his mind unbidden, of piles of bodies, mountains of bodies, and he blinked it away uneasily.

* * *

John waited until the door had closed and looked at Abely. "He knew you were lying," he said.

Abely's mouth curled up. "I know."

Shaking his head slightly, John continued, "What did Emerson say?"

"He and Mina have looked right through what they brought, and they've been in touch with the other chapters, but so far zilch," Abely said, going to the polished walnut sideboard next to the door and pouring out two glasses of the rare, single malt whiskey he bootlegged in from Charlie Whittaker every year. Whittaker had come by ship and on foot from Islay, bringing tales of kelpies and sea monsters and his grandfather's recipes for fine whiskey along with several hundredweight sacks of Scottish barley. He tended his fields with the tender care of a midwife and produced three hundred gallons of single malt a year, selling it sparingly after it had been aged for another twenty-nine.

Looking at the liquid that slid oilily over the glass, he thought he'd have to take John to Charlie's small distillery. The mad Scot was an interesting man.

"So," John said, leaning forward and accepting the glass. "We're no closer to finding out what they're doing or why they're doing it and not likely to be."

Abely sat down and looked at the other man over his glass. "Not right now, but –"

"I want to capture a demon, Abely," John cut him off, his voice low and urgent. "Trap it and get the answers we need."

"You know what Jim said about that."

"So what?" John stared at him. "You think that all I've done since Mary was taken from me hasn't left its own stains over my soul?"

"Not like this, John," Abely said uneasily. "You should have learned by now that what we do leaves marks, not just the scars but … punctures, lesions," he added, unsure of how to describe what he meant. "You can't do it without changing a part of you that – and trust me on this – you don't want changed."

"I can't do it alone," John said, tipping the glass up and swallowing the contents in a single mouthful. "What if they come here, Abely?" He waved a hand around the quiet room. "Come here and kill everyone – my boys, Millie, Jim, our friends – while we're somewhere else?"

"You know they can't get –"

"I know that St Louis had fifty thousand people and you spent the last week burning their remains!" John lurched to his feet, pacing along the length of the sofa helplessly, unable to control the fierce need to move, to keep moving. "I know that I can tear the answers out of the hellspawn! But I can't do it alone."

"John, Millie's going to have a baby."

The words hit John like a bucket of ice water, stopping him dead in mid-stride, his mouth dropping open, the anger and frustration vanishing, wiped clean away as he stared at his friend.

"What?"

Abely's mouth twisted up to one side at the reaction. He'd hoped for it, hoped it would be enough to stop the insanity that John had raised, and not for the first time. He hadn't been sure it would. "That's why she was tired, feeling sick," he said, leaning sideways against the arm of the chair. "She wanted to tell you herself, but … you gotta take this into consideration."

"I …" John shook his head, turning and sinking slowly down to the sofa without looking.

"Yeah."

"Uh, when … how …?"

Abely's brows twitched upward. "She said summer. As to how, well, I think if you remember back, you'll figure that one out on your own."

A child. He couldn't quite take it in, despite the fact that he'd thought it'd been inevitable. Memories of Sam, red-faced and squalling filled his mind, and earlier, the quiet, watchful baby that had been his eldest, Mary, sunlight through the tall, multi-paned windows, a prism of colour on the floor … he closed his eyes tightly and shut those memories away, very deliberately.

In their place, emotion surged, some primitive howl that was a mixture of pure male triumph, that he'd spread his seed, that his line would go on, strengthened; and a swamping, molten feeling of tenderness, for the unborn, for the woman who carried it. He shuddered, his hands rising to cover his face as the emotion fluxed through him and dissipated slowly, leaving behind an ache of memory, of love that couldn't be recaptured.

"Put the thoughts of the demons out of your head, John," Abely said gently, rising to get the bottle of whiskey and fill their glasses again. "We'll find another way."

* * *

_**December 9, 1988.**_

Saffron turned her head at the flutter of the wings. The pit was filled with the scents of feathers and flowers and she breathed it in deeply, the visions blocked, the pain assuaged, somehow, by those smells.

The walls of the well brightened, gradually, but she couldn't see it. In the absence of the visions, darkness filled her eyes, open or closed.

"Who's there?" she whispered, unaware that her voice was barely a breath.

"I am Castiel," a voice came out of the darkness, abrasive and low, indifferent, she thought as she tried to lift herself, falling back immediately, her arms too weak to hold her up. "I am an angel of the Lord."

"Angel."

She felt him take the step toward her, although he made no sound. Felt the singing that seemed to surround him, inaudible but there, making waves in the dank, close air. Fingertips, warm and light, brushed over her face, settling on her forehead.

It was light, she thought confusedly, but not. Flowing from the contact between them, it filled her, instructing her cells to replace themselves, the damaged organs, the wasted muscle, creating more of the liquid that her desiccated body had almost drained. Unseen, the angel frowned as he noted the parts of her that were not healed, that had withered and necrotised beyond his – or the power he wielded – ability to restore.

"You are the Keeper."

"I am the Keeper," she repeated, her eyelids fluttering. She had not died down in this hole although they'd expected her to. The old Keeper had passed it to her in time, in time to prevent her body's decay and death.

"We must leave."

She nodded. The girl she'd been once would have wanted to return to Wayne, to see her family, to reassure them. She was no longer that girl.

"Blue Earth," she told him. Castiel nodded, watching her rise to her feet, turn her head although he knew she could not see him. At least not with her eyes. They were just white, the pupils and irises and corneas gone.

* * *

_**December 12, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

In the close confines of Jim's parlour, lamp and fire lighting the room with the illusion of cosy warmth, Dean huddled on the window seat, his knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them, half-hidden by the voluminous velvet curtains as he listened and hoped to remain unnoticed.

The angel stood at the centre of the room, beside the skeletally thin girl. He'd barely recognised her when the two had appeared in the church the day before. There was no trace of the slightly smug expression that he'd filed his encounters with her under, and when her blank, white eyes had passed around the sacristy, stopping on him for a second, like the other Keeper, then moving past, there'd been no sense of recognition in her. He wasn't sure if she could see, in the normal use of the word, at all.

"We do not know the mechanism by which the Fallen possessed the man," the angel said, his voice deep and gravelly, syntax and intonation stiff and formal.

"The demon is corporeal, in its own vessel," Saffron clarified, her head turning from face to face. "He speaks to Ainslie mind to mind, infecting him with visions and offerings of power."

"This … demon," Jim said hesitantly. "You are sure he is one of the Fallen?"

"Only the Fallen show the flames of Hell in their visage."

Yellow eyes, John thought, swallowing. Emerson had told him that the demons who had yellow eyes were the traitors who'd followed the devil into the pit. Or so legend had it. They had once been angels. Their wings had been cut off, their grace torn out. And the devil had twisted and tortured them into the embodiment of evil in the thousands of years of their imprisonment.

Jim glanced from the girl to the angel. "Do we know his purpose, here on this plane?"

Castiel's face remained expressionless. "The Fallen have but one purpose."

The Keeper let out a soft exhale. "I've seen him moving around the cities, travelling with a woman," she said. "He watches the destruction of his minions without lifting a hand to save them, content in the chaos he has created."

"What about the families?" John asked abruptly. "Have you seen what he does to the families?"

Dean flinched back slightly as that blank gaze swivelled around to rest briefly on him, then she shook her head. "No. He has been following the progress of the hunters."

"You, you must know. You're an angel for Christ's sake," John grated, turning his head. "Why is he targeting families? Why is he destroying them?"

"I have no orders relating to the demon's other activities on this plane," Castiel stated.

"No orders –?" John looked at him disbelievingly. "Look around you, you just sit up there, looking down on us and –"

"Obedience is the first law of Heaven," the Keeper cut him off, her voice mild but firm. "There is no choice for the guardians of the spheres in what they watch."

John stared at her, his mouth thinning.

"There are heretics among us," Castiel said into the thick silence. "Traitors to our Father who have set things in motion we are still discovering and collating. We cannot help you until we have resolved what is behind this."

He vanished, the movement of the air where he'd stood stirring the flames on the hearth and filling the room with a momentary overpowering scent of flowers and feathers and the faint echo of beating wings.

Saffron turned her head from John to Jim. "There is unrest on the Divine plane, and the messengers will not be able to help us."

Abely stood up and walked to her. "Saffron, who took you and Tuck from Wayne? What happened to Tuck?"

Dean watched her blink slowly, the knowing expression fading from her face, leaving in its place a bewildered girl. The bright blonde curls that had framed a pretty, heart-shaped face were gone, shorn close to her scalp and the smooth, pupilless eyes belied the impression further, but he felt the withdrawal of the part of her that was immortal.

"I don't remember," she said, her voice higher. "It was dark and cold. And I couldn't see. I still can't see."

He saw her breathing quicken, her hands rise and then they dropped, the calm expression taking over her features and her chest steadying into a rhythmic rise and fall. It sent a creeping chill down his spine to see that transformation, see whatever it was that lived inside of her come and go. How did they know that it wasn't a demon, cleverer and more subtle than most but still possessing her, he wondered?

"Those memories are not intact," she said, her voice prosaic and deeper again.

"We need to know how she was taken out of a protected village," Abely pressed her and she shrugged.

"Humans have short vision," she told him bluntly. "There are many who would do a demon's bidding to gain something they want, civilians or hunters. That comes as no surprise to you, Abely Thompson."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

* * *

_**December 24, 1988. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

Dean watched his little brother crawling around the base of the big pine tree that took up an entire corner of the front parlour, poking and prodding at the brightly wrapped gifts that covered the floor under it, flinching back occasionally as a drip of soft wax from the myriad of tiny candles covering the branches hit him.

He looked around as Emerson took a seat next to him on the long, velvet-upholstered sofa, taking the warm cup of frothy, brandy-laced eggnog the tall scholar handed to him and hiding his reaction to the taste behind the cup.

"How do we know that Saffron isn't being possessed by an angel or a demon, as Ainslie is?" he asked, watching Emerson quaff the drink in two gulps and trying it again.

"She was tested, thoroughly, when the messenger brought her to the church," Emerson said, watching the boy's nose wrinkle up a little as he tried another sip.

"She looked like she was possessed," Dean persisted, turning over the memory of the moment again in his mind's eye. "Like whatever was there withdrew when Abely asked her about how she was taken."

Lifting his hand to cover his smile at the way Dean's tongue ran around the inside of his mouth after the third sip, the legacy felt a fillip of surprise at the boy's percipience, his eyes slightly narrowed as he watched the boy set the cup down on the low table next to them.

"There is a symbiosis – a mutually beneficial relationship – between the Keeper and its host," he explained and pulled a twist of paper from his waistcoat pocket. He handed it to Dean and watched as the boy unwrapped the paper carefully and looked in mystification at the heaping of fine white sugar crystals it held.

"Put it in your eggnog," he suggested, waving a hand at the abandoned cup. "It will hide the taste of the brandy."

Dean tipped the paper over the cup and took another experimental sip, his face brightening.

"Whatever it is, is neither angel nor demon," Emerson continued. "There is no lore about it, no history other than the histories of the hosts over the centuries, and no way of finding out more about it since once it has chosen the new host, it declines to cooperate in learning more about it."

"Caleb said that it was in the bloodlines of the hunters, that the visions came because of that," Dean said, remembering the conversation with his friend in Wayne. "He didn't know anything else."

"Most people don't," Emerson agreed, leaning back against the plump cushions. "Most hunters never see what you did, the withdrawal of the entity and the host regaining control," he added. "Or if they do, they don't recognise what is happening."

"Saffron didn't look happy," Dean said, his voice dropping. He took another mouthful of the sweetened drink, surprised to find that he'd emptied his cup, and the liquor-laced concoction had left a comfortable heat in his throat and stomach.

"No." Emerson considered him. "No, it doesn't seem to offer much to the host. I've never heard of a Keeper who wanted to be a Keeper. Perhaps that's how it chooses them."

"That doesn't make sense," Dean said, blinking a little owlishly at him. "You said it was mutually ben-bene-beneficial."

"Perhaps Saffron will benefit in some other way," the scholar suggested mildly. "It saved her life."

"Or put her in harm's way to begin with," Dean argued. "Why would she be taken if it wasn't because the demon knew she was the one?" He hiccuped and rethought what he'd said. "Why'd it take Tuck as well?"

"You should be studying at the order full-time, Dean," Emerson said, smiling a little at him.

Dean ducked his head. "I have a job."

"No, you have duty," Emerson countered. "At the moment, you consider it to your family. But one day you will understand that you have a duty to yourself as well."

"Where'd y'get the eggnog?" Dean asked, standing up and picking up his cup. "An' the sugar?"

"Sit down, I'll get you another."

Subsiding back into the thick nest of cushions and throws at the corner of the sofa, Dean pushed aside the legacy's words. He would be a hunter, like his father. Like Abely and Bill and Jim. He would save people from the monsters and the demons and the evil in the world.

His attention was caught by a flash of red from the other side of the room and he turned to look, seeing Millie walk in with his father. In the long, red velvet gown, she seemed to be glowing in the candle-light from the tree, and he wondered if that was a side-effect of the brandy as well. Her stomach curved out now and he wondered if the baby growing inside her was symbiotic as well. Mutually beneficial. He thought it might be, Millie had been overflowing with a constant happiness for the last month.

A baby sister or brother for him and Sam, his father had told him, declining to explain exactly how that had worked. He shook his head a little impatiently at the memory of his father's reluctance to go into the details. He knew that when Abely wasn't here, his father slept in the big bedroom at the end of the hall. He knew too how babies were made, theoretically, at least.

It wasn't like other families, but then they hadn't been like other families for a long time, he thought. Watching Millie wrap his little brother in a hug as she knelt beside the tree, Sammy's face lit up with excitement and anticipation and utterly confident in the love that surrounded him, he decided that the entire concept of other families was over-rated. What they had here was better.

"Take this one a bit more slowly," Emerson advised from behind him and he looked around, taking the cup carefully and sipping at it. The taste was the same, sweetened with the underlying bite to it. He thought he might be getting used to it.

"What does it mean when you keep having the same dream, over and over?" he asked the legacy curiously, missing the narrowing of the man's eyes as he sipped a little more.

"Depends on the dream," Emerson said slowly. "What kind of dream?"

"I dunno," Dean told him. "Nothing bad happens, but it feels like something might. There's a marsh and it's raining and there's a girl with red hair in the upstairs window of a house that's crooked."

Frowning, Emerson asked, "That's it?"

"Yeah, mostly," the boy said. "Dad and Jim are standing on the porch of the house, sometimes."

"How often have you had the dream, Dean?"

"A few times," he said, eyes half-closing as he thought about it. "Maybe twenty times, since I got back from Wayne?"

"It started after you were turned?"

"I think so," Dean said, more doubtfully, wondering if he should be changing the subject. He noticed belatedly how closely Emerson was looking at him. "S'nothing, right? Just dreams?"

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Dean," the legacy said reassuringly. Dean wasn't fooled. He heard the thread of unease in the man's voice, under that cotton-wool assurance.

"Why doesn't the Council ever pick Abely to be on it?" he asked, not wanting to know why Emerson was worried about his dreams. He'd been careful not to mention them to anyone and he'd just blurted it out to the man next to him without any thought at all. "Or Jim?"

"I don't know," Emerson said, letting the change of subject go without issue. "I'm not privy to the workings of the Hunter's Council, I have enough problems with the order's hierarchy, to be frank."

Dean blinked at him. He hadn't considered there would be another Council, leading and advising the legacies and acolytes of the order.

The silvery chimes of a bell interrupted his thoughts and Emerson's and they turned to see Mrs Abernathy, Jim's housekeeper, standing at the doors to the parlour.

"Dinner's served."

"Come on, you need something in your stomach if you're going to match me drink for drink, Dean," Emerson said, unfolding himself from the sofa and gesturing to the door.

Dean stood up and stopped, the room tilting slightly in one direction before righting itself, his depth perception slightly off. He drew in a deep breath and walked slowly for the doors, aware of the legacy behind him.

"You look very handsome, Dean," Mina whispered to him as she walked past to take Emerson's arm. He looked down in surprise, having almost forgotten what he was wearing.

The suit was dark green, but of a muted fabric, with subtle gleams. Millie had made it for him, basing it mostly on his father's military uniform. There was no lace and no frills and he didn't mind dressing for dinner wearing it.

He cleared his throat slightly and smiled at her, ducking his head. It would've been polite to return the compliment, he knew, but he couldn't make himself say anything about the way the diminutive redhead looked, although he could imagine Caleb's gallant response. Mina's wine-red hair was piled in a mass of loose curls on the top of her head, the pale emerald satin gown was frilled with lace along her décolletage, contrasting with the creamy skin and shadowed cleavage, nipped tight at the waist and flowing generously from hourglass hips.

"Uh, you look pretty, Mina," he managed to get out and walked faster ahead of them, ignoring the soft chuckles behind him.

The dining room table was set to capacity, the centre filled with candelabra, bowls of fruit and flowers, sprigs of holly and rowan bright against the snowy linen. Jim, Emerson, Mina, Abely, his father and Millie and Sammy found their places and pulled out the high-backed chairs. He'd been placed between his father and Sam, and he dragged his chair back into the table, nostrils flaring appreciatively as Mrs Abernathy began to serve the first course.

Hazelnut and parsnip soup was followed by glazed ham and roast apple, the conversation around the table drifting over him as he ate, hunter's talk interspersed with the speculations of Mina about the new members of the Council. Dean listened absently as the goose was brought out and carved, roasted pumpkin and potato and onion accompanying the butter-soft slices of meat, chestnut stuffing and blackcurrant sauce adding their scents to the room.

"If Nathaniel and Bartemius were elected, it would change the balance of power to those who think this incursion is just an aberration," Mina was saying forcefully to Jim.

"I don't think anyone thinks that now, Mina," the pastor said soothingly, picking up the tall ceramic decanter and refilling her glass with the warmed, spiced wine. "Even Rathbone no longer thinks that it's a matter of few demons loose in the world."

"Well, he took one look at that mutie and started to run –"

"Emerson, do you know if Gil is planning on returning soon –?"

"We haven't heard, Millie."

"Dean, pass the sauce," Sammy said softly and he passed the curved jug to him.

Looking up the table, Dean noticed Mina's worried glance at her companion. Emerson was looking at the windows, eyes slightly unfocussed.

"Did Abe say where he was taking Rufus?"

"Didn't get the chance, Turner took off straight after."

"What about Bobby?"

"Gone on a bender," Abely said, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "He'll get over it."

"In the meantime, we're down two –"

"Elkins has started to train a bunch of civilians, from Boulder –"

Dean watched as the legacy looked down at his glass, picking it up and tossing down the contents in a single gulp. He felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, at Emerson's shuttered expression, at the small, decisive thump as the goblet hit the table.

"Emerson."

The man turned to Mina, that closed-in, hard expression disappearing as he smiled at her reassuringly.

"What's for dessert?" he asked lightly and Dean felt the prickle intensify for a moment, then fade away.

* * *

_**December 31, 1988.**_

Dean put the book he'd been reading down, his eyes closing slowly in the warmth of the room. He could hear his father and Abely, chaffing each other quietly as they played a game of chess at the table by the window, could hear Millie's low, sweet voice reading a story to his little brother, Sam's high voice interrupting with questions every few moments. The firelight played in light and jumping shadows against his eyelids and the simple lunch they'd eaten an hour before was digesting peacefully in his stomach, aiding and abetting the somnolence that stole around him.

The doorbell rang and he frowned a little, hearing Millie get up in a rustle of skirts and petticoats, Sam's protest trailing away.

His eyes flew open as Mina burst through the doors, her eyes wild with panic.

"He's dying!"

John and Abely were on their feet, and Dean struggled to free himself from the cushioned clutches of the big armchair.

"Stay here," John ordered Dean and Millie and Sammy indiscriminately, following Abely out through the glass-paned doors. "Millie, can you get hold of Mrs Craven? We'll need up at Jim's."

Dean met his brother's gaze as Millie nodded and left the room as well, seeing the little boy worry in his wrinkled forehead.

"Whatever it is, Sammy, it'll be okay," he said, completely unsure if that were true.

* * *

Ahead of the older hunter, Mina raced back to the church, her skirts bunched in one hand, hair loosening from its neat coils and straggling back over her shoulders.

In the lowest level of the crypt, they found Jim kneeling beside Emerson. The scholar was soaking wet, an acrid steam rising from his clothing, his hands and shoes crisped and blackened. To one side of the cold, stone room, a large oval-shaped copper tub was half-full of water, the liquid bubbling and sending plumes of the same bitter-smelling steam across the ceiling.

Jim barely spared them a glance. "Abely, the holy water, from the font. John, help me get him out of here!"

"What the hell happened?" John asked as Abely disappeared back up the stairs and he hurried around to take Emerson's shoulders, Jim shuffling backward on his knees to get his legs.

"He was desperate," Mina answered, her eyes fixed on the legacy's waxen face. "Desperate for the answers he knew you all needed."

There was a hint of acrimony under her fear and pain, John thought as he shifted his grip to lift the man more securely. He looked at Jim.

"Where?"

"Upstairs, the library," Jim grunted, taking the weight of the lower half of the man. "He attempted a crossing to Hell."

"He didn't 'attempt' anything, Jim," Mina spat back immediately. "He was there."

"What?!"

They staggered out of the crypt, the narrow, uneven staircase slowing them further and met Abely on the level above.

"Here," Jim said, looking at the table. "Abely, in his mouth first, then get his clothes off and over his body."

In moments, Emerson lay naked on the table, his body fiery red in places, a dead-looking white in others and even after the holy water had sluiced over him and Jim and Mina had taken cloths to press it into every inch of his skin, two of his fingers remained black.

"John, the surgical bag is in the room behind the kitchen, Mrs Abernathy will show you," he said tightly, looking down at the scholar's hand. "Mina, we need scalding water, alcohol, clean dressings –"

She whirled around and took off for the stairs, John on her heels. "Abely, bring my Bible from the pulpit, if you please."

Abely looked at him for a moment then nodded, following the others up the stairs.

Jim thumbed up Emerson's eyelid, looking at the non-responsive pupils uneasily. The scholar's heart beat was thready, sometimes stronger, sometimes hesitating and beating out of rhythm. He was breathing, but that too was irregular and shallow, and he wondered if the legacy was still trapped in the lower plane, his mind seeing things that weren't present.

Bootsteps on the stone stairs dragged his attention away from those speculations and he pulled off his black coat, rolling his sleeves past the elbows and gritting his teeth as he washed his hands in the bowl of hot water Mina set on the end of the table, holding them out for her to pour the pure, clear alcohol over.

"I'll need the cleavers, scalpel and those clamps," he told John as the hunter unfastened the bulky leather bag. "Sterilise them and put them on a clean cloth here." He looked back to Mina. "Sutures, needle and have dressings ready. I have to take those fingers."

She nodded, her face pale and set as she moved to the bag and drew out what he'd requested.

Abely came into the room, the big, leather-bound Bible in his hands.

"Abely, Psalms. Twenty-three, four."

"What happened to him?" John asked, as he set the sterilised instruments on the cloth without touching them and stepped back.

"Emerson has a gift," Mina said slowly. "He can cross from one plane to another, by will."

"He actually went to Hell?" John asked, his voice dropping.

She looked up at him. "One minute he was in that tub, the next he was gone. When he came back, he was … burned, cooking," she stumbled over the words. "As you saw him."

"Why?" Abely said, the Bible open to the section Jim had requested as the priest looked at Emerson's damaged hand.

"To get answers," Mina said abruptly. "To talk to the demons about what is going on here."

"Why would they talk to him?"

"That's another gift," Jim said absently, picking up the cleaver and setting the edge against the base of Emerson's finger. "One from his heritage." He looked up at Abely. "Read the verse, please, Abely."

"_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want_," Abely read softly. "_He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake_."

Jim cut through the dead flesh and bone, relieved to see blood pumping from the wound when he released it. He picked up the scalpel and removed the small remaining shreds of black meat from the knuckle and washed the wound clean, first with the holy water and then with the alcohol.

"_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me_," Abely continued, keeping his eyes on the page as a soft moan came from the legacy on the table.

Jim slid the needle through the skin over the knuckle, drawing it tight and knotting it. He closed the cut with four more, close together, and took the gauze and cotton pads that Mina held out for him, bandaging the stump firmly.

"_Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over_."

The second finger took less time to remove and stitch, longer to dress and bandage. Jim wound the white cloth around Emerson's entire hand, his attention fixed on what he was doing as Abely's voice rose and fell in the silence of the room.

"_Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever_."

* * *

In the priest's parlour, the three men sat, fingers curled around their glasses. They looked up as the door opened, and Mina came in, followed closely by Mrs Abernathy carrying a tray. The appetising odours of baked sweet rolls wafted into the room ahead of her, and John made room on the sofa for Mina to sit beside him as the housekeeper set the tray on the low table in front of them and left the room.

"I knew he was thinking of doing something stupid," Mina said, staring at the floor. "Straight after Christmas, he had that look."

Jim exchanged a swift look with Abely and shook his head. "Why didn't he have anyone monitoring him?"

"Because he knew I would argue with him about it," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "He knew I would never agree to him doing it."

John saw the guilt and regret in her face, the expression quickly hidden as she looked back up at Jim.

"We spoke to Charlotte, after she joined up with Daniel's people," she admitted. "The chapters to the west are completely cut off from us now, and Emerson was desperate to discover what purpose there was to that."

"Is there a purpose?" John asked. "To any of this? I thought that demons were only interested in chaos and pain?"

"Without leadership, that's undoubtedly true," Emerson said unsteadily from the doorway.

Mina leapt to her feet, reaching his side and slipping an arm around his waist as he took a step into the room.

"What are you doing up? You should be resting," she said crossly, her face tightening as his weight shifted to her.

"My darling Mina," the legacy said, his eyes closing and perspiration beading his forehead suddenly as a wave of nausea came and went. "I almost killed myself for this information, did you think I could wait any longer to deliver it?"

Abely and John reached him and Mina relinquished her hold as John slid the man's arm over his shoulder.

"Are those sweet rolls?" Emerson asked, looking at the table as he was half-carried across the room. "I'm famished."

"You scared us half to death and this is your commentary?" Mina muttered, taking a roll from the tray and slathering butter on it furiously. She handed him the roll as the hunters eased him onto the sofa. "Spit it out then, since you are obviously too addled to retain your wits for more than a few minutes at a time!"

"There is a leadership challenge in Hell," Emerson said, taking a bite from the roll and leaning back against the cushions. "Two factions have openly declared war, and they are striving to consolidate their bases."

"What?" John sat down on the end of the sofa, staring at the man. "I thought the hierarchy was fixed –"

"About as much as the hierarchy of Heaven," Emerson said, swallowing. "And we know that to be in contention now as well."

"There are no coincidences," Jim said.

"No," Emerson agreed tiredly. "There are none. The demon I spoke to said that one of the Fallen was released through a Gate. It didn't escape. It was let out, deliberately."

"Only an angel has that power." Jim finished the contents of his glass in a gulp.

"Correct." Emerson put the remains of the roll back on the table. "Azazel was released in 1972. He released others, through massacre and sacrifice, and their first act was to take over the COG group, in Kansas City."

"It's an easy platform," Abely said thoughtfully. "What about the other faction?"

"They are led by Lilith," the legacy told him. "And they are opposing whatever it is that Azazel is attempting on this plane."

"What did he want with my family?" John cut in impatiently. "Why were we attacked?"

"It didn't know why Azazel was targeting families, John," Emerson said quietly.

"What happened down there?" Mina asked sharply.

Emerson shrugged. "I stayed too long. I was discovered."

"You were almost killed!"

"Really, Mina, that happens quite frequently," he chided gently, one side of his mouth lifting a little ruefully.

She looked away, her face stiff.

"A war in Hell and a war in Heaven," Jim said, brow furrowed as he considered it.

"And us stuck in the middle," Abely added, going to the sideboard and refilling his glass. "Our odds are looking bad."

"If there are no coincidences," Jim continued to muse. "Then the two wars are one, for the same ending."

"How could angels and demons possibly want the same thing?" Mina asked, her tone shrewish. Emerson looked at her and laid his hand gently on her arm. John watched as she lifted her gaze to the legacy, the fear pushed away by whatever it was that she saw in his eyes.

"I don't know," Jim admitted. "But we'd better figure it out, before they get much further."

* * *

_**January 20, 1989.**_

Snow covered the garden, mantling the rooftops and shrouding the shrubs, a clean white blanket that hid the dormant branches and dead grass. Sitting in the cold bower of the gazebo, John rubbed his fingertips over his forehead, as if the action could force his thoughts into clarity.

Every city from Chicago to Boulder had been cleansed of the demon infestations and Daniel had reported that the retreat to the south and west had been confirmed. The chapters of the order, in California and in Montana had finally managed to re-establish communication with Emerson and Mina, and they too reported no demon signs over the northern states of the country or along the western seaboard.

It was not, he knew, a cessation of hostilities. Merely a ceasefire, and that itself was questionable. Who could foresee what the demons' plans were, led by the first-made demon on one side and a fallen angel on the other? No messenger had come, either to the Keeper in Nebraska, or to the order who'd been praying for help for a month now.

There was only way to be sure, he thought. One way to get the information they needed and know what was happening. And he couldn't wait any longer. His hands squeezed together, the muscles in his forearms and shoulders jumping under his clothing, tendons standing out in his neck. He could not keep his fear locked deeply away enough any more. He'd barely slept the last couple of weeks, between the nightmares that rose from his past and the projections his subconscious made about the future – his future, the futures of his sons, of his unborn child – it would drive him more mad than any controlled, deliberate encounter with a demon could, he reasoned illogically.

His head snapped up as he heard the soft slur by the doorway of the building, looking into Abely's understanding gaze.

"What'd she mean, Abely?" he asked, the question falling out of nothing that he'd been thinking, nothing he'd even wondered about. "The Keeper, when she said you knew that people made deals?"

The older hunter leaned back against the doorframe, his head ducking as he pulled off his gloves and loosened the thick, woollen scarf around his neck.

"It was a long time ago, John," he said.

"Tell me."

"It won't help."

"I've trusted you with my life."

Silence stretched out between them as they both acknowledged and considered that. Abely sighed, rubbing along the line where his woollen cap ran across his forehead.

"When I got out of the service, I worked with a couple of hunters," he said reluctantly. "One of 'em, he was out, same week as me. We knew each other in passing, but hadn't served together."

He walked across the paved floor, boots squeaking a little on the dry snow that had dusted the surface and sat down on the edge of the chair, his hands curled around the gloves in them, fingers tightening and loosening a little on them as he looked for the words.

"He wasn't a bad man," Abely said, looking up at John. "I mean, no more'n the rest of us, really. Might've been his … sense of right'n wrong was a bit thinner than some. We hunted together for six years, and over that time, as you might imagine, we got into and out of some tight scrapes. A few very tight ones, too."

John nodded impatiently, his attention fixed on Abely's face, watching the expressions pass like shadows over it, memories and regrets mixed together.

"He fell for a woman," Abely said, tipping his head back. "Seemed like she fell hard too, but she was married, and she said she loved her husband."

"Now, back then, I didn't know anything about demons," Abely continued after a moment's pause. "Not even the crossroads demons, aside from the occasional word-of-mouth myth that passed by and was forgotten. We had no truck with them, and it didn't even occur to me that Tobe might feel so strongly that he'd try anything."

"He made a deal?"

"Not exactly," Abely said, shaking his head. "Demon wasn't interested in his soul, or giving him the standard contract."

"What did it want?"

"It wanted a kid, an infant," Abely said, his voice hardening to iron. "For some witch that it was running, the deal was that Tobe would get it the kid, hand it over to the witch and he'd get the woman."

John felt his gorge rise as he registered the implications, his imagination furnishing every minute detail.

"What?"

"Yeah," Abely agreed, his eyes bleak. "What. He made the deal. Broke into some poor family's home, took their baby and gave it to the demon. And he got the girl. For a while anyways."

"What happened?" John asked uneasily.

"Couldn't live with it, told her and she left. Went back to her husband only to find that he'd killed himself. Demon must'a drinking itself to death on the pain that one deal had cost all the way 'round."

"Abely –"

"Dealin' with demons, bad idea, John," Abely cut him off. "In any way, at any time, it's always a fucking bad idea. You understand that?"

"Yes, I do," John said, dark brows drawing together as he saw where Abely was heading. "I don't want to deal with them. I want to pull every piece of information out of one and send its carcass back to Hell. That's all."

"And if it costs you the way you feel about yourself? If you can't live with what you have to do to get that information?"

"I can't live like this," John told him bluntly. "I can't live knowing that yellow-eyed monster wants my children, came into contact with my children – and now – now, I have another child I have to think about."

He missed the tiny flinch in his friend's face, hidden as Abely lifted his hand and ran it over his jaw.

"I can't do this alone, I know that," John continued relentlessly. "I need you. I need your help." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he stared at Abely. "For Millie and the child that's yours as much as mine, I need you to help me."

* * *

The bedroom was warm and dark and silent and Abely moved slightly closer to the woman in his arms, eyes squeezing shut, trying to get away from his thoughts.

"What's wrong?" Millie asked, and his mouth curved up slightly, wondering if he'd let his concern out deliberately or if it was just that she knew him too well after all their years together.

"Nothing," he whispered against the soft curls. "Jus' don't like leaving you."

For a moment, she was silent, and he hoped that she'd accepted the small lie, hoped that she was too sleepy to question it.

"You'd tell me if you were worried about somethin', Abely, wouldn't you?" she asked, and he felt the increase in her pulse through his forearms, where they curled over her chest. "If you were worried about … John?"

"Of course I would," he said, that lie sliding out easier. "I'm not worried about John, just you. And we won't be long, this time. Just a routine check to see how far the hellspawn went. Not even goin' to be fightin'."

She sighed, her ribs rising and falling against him. "You're gonna miss Dean's birthday," she said softly.

"I know." He'd argued with John to stay until at least after that. Argued till he was blue in the face. "We'll make it up to him, when we get home."

* * *

_**January 24, 1989.**_

Dean sat on his bed, looking at the armoured vest and the multi-lensed glasses sitting beside him. A little beyond them, the lamp light gleamed in straight bright lines along the edges of the carved wooden frame that held a photograph of his mother that he'd never seen before. That gift had been from Millie. She'd told him his father had given her the picture, for him. He leaned forward and picked it up, thumb sliding along the satiny wood as he tilted it to the light. She was holding Sam in one arm, smiling widely at the camera, her other arm wrapped close around him, his hair long and blond in the picture, two teeth missing in his smile. He didn't remember getting his picture taken with her and Sammy. He didn't remember a lot of things of that time, he thought unhappily, things that he should remember. Things that he should remember to tell his brother.

His father and Abely had left three days ago, a routine job, they'd said. Just checking that the towns to the south had been cleared. Nothing to worry about and they'd be back soon. They'd both been lying. He wasn't sure if Millie had understood that, but he'd seen the lies in the thrum of tension in his father, in the way Abely's gaze had cut away when he'd asked which way they were headed, in the silence between the two men as they'd packed the black car with weaponry and the bags of ingredients that were for the making of traps. He'd felt the lie in his father's brusque hug and seen it in the darkness in his face, the dark green eyes that were almost the same shade as his own, empty and cold.

The vest was from Abely. It was hand-made, like his brother's, beautifully wrought and stronger, thicker, than Sammy's. The glasses were from Jim, light-enhancers that would let him see in the dark, see the creatures of the night, see the spirits that couldn't rest and where power lurked in the earth. Biting his lip as he looked over the gifts in front of him, he wondered if he'd been equipped so well because the hunters might not come back.

_Don't be ridiculous_. He shook himself, trying to get rid of the shivery feeling that had been present on and off since he'd woken that morning. Even if they had lied to him, to Millie and to Sam about what they were really doing, it didn't mean that they couldn't handle it. He didn't think that there was anything they couldn't handle, the men who he looked up to and modelled his life around. Singly or together, they were invincible.

The door opened and Millie's head appeared around it. "You still up?"

He nodded, sliding off the bed and gathering the presents in his arms. The vest went on the bureau, the glasses and photograph frame onto his nightstand.

Millie came in and picked up the clothing that was scattered over the floor, folding it and putting it on the chest at the foot of the bed without comment, watching him obliquely as he dragged back the covers and crawled under them.

"Happy Birthday, Dean."

He looked up at her and smiled, a crooked smile that hid everything he was thinking and feeling behind a façade of I'm-fine-don't-need-to-worry-about-me-all-good-here.

Millie smiled back and turned off the lamp, turning away and walking out. Dean lay still on the bed until he heard her footsteps recede down the hall, then rolled onto his shoulder.

He wasn't a little kid anymore, he told himself irritably. He didn't need his father here for a birthday, for criminy's sake. The pang in his chest said otherwise but he ignored it, pretended it was from too much cake, too much of Millie's lemonade … the concern he felt for his father and why he'd lied about what he was doing.

Behind his closed eyelids, his eyeballs felt too big and dry, and he swallowed. He had to be stronger than this, he told himself. Had to be like his father, able to control himself, to not react.

* * *

"_You think you kin get through to me here? You?"_

_The voice was like an insect's, buzzing and humming against his mind. Dean pressed himself back against the cold stone wall, trying to hide from it._

"_Look at you, you're pathetic!"_

_The scream that followed rose sharply and fell, subsumed in a frantic bubbling noise that made Dean think of blocked drains and running water._

"_What is Azazel's plan?"_

_He flinched back from his father's voice, his mouth dropping open as he heard the fury and hatred and a dark glee in it he'd never heard before. It didn't sound like his father._

_Another scream split the air, ricocheting around the hard walls, the agony in it freezing him in place. He squeezed himself into a tight ball, arms wrapped around his knees and his face tucked against them._

"_Do it again, Winchester," the voice said, mushy and cracked now. "I kin see the darkness in you, gettin' wider an' wider. Carve me into lil pieces and there warn't be anythin' left of you neither!"_

"_We'll see about that."_

* * *

_**January 25, 1989. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma**_

Abely stared at his friend, watching the sweat drip from John's jaw and fly off as his body twisted to deliver another blow.

Under his fists, the demon's meatsuit jerked and shuddered against the steel-framed chair, features gone, most of its throat torn and fluttering with each indrawn breath.

"John!"

He caught the man's arm on the backswing, dragging him around, forcing himself not to move as John's eyes narrowed on him and his lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. Holding his wrist, Abely kept his gaze fixed on his friend's eyes and let out his breath as the pupils contracted a little, the muscles surrounding his mouth eased and loosened.

"Take a break," Abely said, not looking at the demon in the circle.

"It knows more, Abely," John said, his voice as cracked and hoarse as the demon's. "It knows a helluva lot more."

"Maybe," Abely agreed readily. "But you're running on adrenalin and rage. You need to rest, eat. Just for a few minutes."

John let himself be led away from the circle, wiping a hand over his face and looking at the reddish liquid that coated his palm in dull surprise. He took the soft, wet cloth Abely passed him and washed his face and neck, wiping his hands and belatedly feeling the sting of the air in the splits over his knuckles.

The binding sigil held the demon in the meatsuit. The circle held the meatsuit in the room. Behind the demon, a wooden step ladder held a bucket, holy water mixed with blessed salt, above it, a rubber hose leading from the bucket to the demon's mouth, most of the tube's contents dribbling out of the rents in the neck now.

Unending agony, Abely thought distantly, looking at the meatsuit. Something demons knew more about than anything else. It was right. They couldn't do to it anything up here than it would face on a daily or hourly basis in the pit. All they could do was stain themselves.

He looked at John's face. There were new lines, etched alongside his mouth and between his brows that hadn't been there before. Lines that spoke of a cruelty that he hadn't seen in his friend before. He knew John had nightmares. Even if they hadn't shared accommodation on the hunts they'd done together, he would've known, he thought. John only looked rested at home, and only then if they'd been there for a while.

Behind them, the demon coughed, spraying blood and spit across the floor.

"Y'all have to forgive me," it croaked at them. "I had no idea this was a personal matter for ya, John."

"What?" John turned to look at it, barely feeling Abely's restraining hand on his shoulder. "What the hell you talking about?"

It laughed. "Ol' yellow-eyes done visited your family, dinnit he?"

"John," Abely warned, his grip tightening as he felt the man's shoulder bunch up beneath his hand.

"Ha, should'a known," the demon continued, blood dribbling over its lips. "You wanna know what he was doing there, in the nursery, late one night, right?"

"What do you know?" John said, walking back into the circle.

"Come closer, John," the demon stared up at him, eyeballs glinting black in the torn folds of flesh that surrounded them. "Close enough for me to drink the pain."

"Tell me what the fuck you know," John snapped, hesitating at the edge of the circle.

"Not unless you come closer."

"John, no –"

"Closer, John," the demon insisted, as the hunter took a step across the trap. "Closer."

"No, John, please," Abely said, striding after him. "Think about this –"

"Leave me alone, Abely," John said. He walked to the chair and leaned down, his eyes on a level with the demon's. "Tell me."

"Need to touch you," the demon said softly. "Cheek to cheek."

His face twitched but John leaned closer, feeling the soft, wet, torn flesh slide against his cheek.

"NO!"

Sight. Sound. Taste. Smell. Touch. All vanished at the moment he made contact with the meatsuit. He hung suspended in nothingness, helpless and unable to move.

Then he felt.

Bony fingers scrabbling through his mind, a malodorous breath filling his nose as crude amusement permeated his conscious, behind it a deep, ravenous avarice, for every wound, every hole and tear. He felt it sucking at him, a rasping against his memories, a tongue licking through and over him.

"Oh dear, she interrupted him," the demon crooned and he felt his body again, feet planted against the stone floor, his muscles twitching and trembling, his stomach roiling and heaving at the sensations that something was crawling through him, inside, in his mind, in his body. "She should'a known, she broke the deal, should'a known the price was death."

John felt his chest constrict sharply, cutting off his air.

"An' what was he doin' there?" the demon speculated thoughtfully, the mess of raw meat sliding slightly over John's cheek, brushing against the corner of his mouth. "Why, he was feedin' the babe, Johnny. Feedin' the little infant in his crib."

"Wha–?" he gasped, trying to move himself away.

"Azazel, ninth of the Fallen Ones, is changin' the kiddies, changin' them from your children into his children," the demon told him, broken mouth pulled into a leering smile.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

* * *

_**January 25, 1989. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma**_

John felt himself yanked backward, his feet sliding out on the floor slick with blood and water and bodily fluids, both shoulders held in a vice-like grip, then he was thrown, out of the trap, landing on his shoulder and hip as Abely plunged the almost-molten end of the branding iron across the sigil burned into the meatsuit's arm.

_"Exorcizamus spiritus omnis adversarii infernalis, incursion omnis, legio omnis, congregation omnis, et secta diabolica nefas Et ad speculum in puteum inferni ianua!"_ Abely's voice rang out as John struggled to his feet, stomach heaving with the sizzling scent of roasting flesh.

"No, not yet!" he cried out in despair, too late for the demon that had been released and banished in the same moment. "Goddammit, Abely!"

The older hunter pulled the iron from the cooked meat and wheeled around, his face stony and his eyes chips of blue ice.

"We're fucking done here, John," he yelled at him. "You get it? Done!"

John stared at the dead body strapped to the chair. The demon had gone, sent back from whence it came.

"We'll talk this through with Jim, alright?" Abely said, sucking down mouthfuls of air to keep the contents of his stomach down where they belonged. "We'll figure it out."

"No." John rolled to his feet and got up slowly. He felt pummelled and flattened, his body aching and his mind rapidly numbing. "No, I want to see Bill."

"God, John, that puts us on the road another five days, we need to get home –"

Dean's birthday, John thought, closing his eyes as he wiped a hand over his face.

"Fine, you're right. Home first," he said, turning and stumbling as the muscles in his legs shook. "Then we'll all go together. To the roadhouse." And Gil, he thought suddenly. He wanted to see what Gil thought of what the demon had said.

"You should talk to Emerson at least," Abely said, seeming to read his thoughts. "If you can't talk to Jim, Emerson knows more about demon lore than anyone –"

John coughed, a thin stream of bile spilling from between his lips. "I will, Abely. After." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and turned away.

_Mary_, he thought, fighting against the knotting of his stomach. His cheek was burning, itching, and he wiped at it, looking down at his sleeve and seeing the blood and pieces of matted flesh that had been caught against his skin, tangled in his beard.

"God," he said unsteadily and ran for the door, his boots ringing on the stone floor.

"John!" Abely watched him go and turned back to the body. He was tempted to leave the tools there, let the flame clean them and melt them back into their component metals, but it was too hard to forge good tools and he picked them up and scrubbed them thoroughly in the bucket of salted water, wiping each down with a rag soaked in oil and replacing them in the bag.

Picking up the small can of alcohol they'd brought, he threw the contents over the corpse and the chair and the ladder, watching it drip to the floor. He lit the match and tossed it into the circle, and the flammable liquid went up with a whoosh of blue flame, sucking the air from the room and changing colour as it found cloth and wood and flesh.

Abely looked around and backed out, carrying the bags and pulling the door closed behind him. The building was stone, and he didn't think that it would go up but there was no percentage to watching the pyre.

* * *

He found John on the street, face pale and sweating, leaning against the side of the black car.

"I'll drive," he said, taking the keys from John's hand and walking to the trunk. He opened it and put the long, leather bags into it, closing it and walking back to his friend. "Get in the car, John."

"We can't get to them here."

John's voice was low and dull, and Abely looked around at him as he slid into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"No," he confirmed, easing the vehicle out onto the road. "That's why Emerson does what he does."

"What kind of gift does he have that he can talk to demons in Hell?"

"I don't know," Abely admitted readily, watching the road under the bright flare of the headlights. "You'd have to ask him."

John leaned back, closing his eyes. Behind the darkness of his lids, images returned to him, most accompanied by the tingle of sense memory in his hands, in the muscles of his arms and shoulders. The demon had been in a vessel, a vessel still containing the mind and soul of the man it had possessed. It had retreated behind that mind several times, and John had looked into the helpless confusion and pain of that man, had heard his pleas for mercy and had forced himself to turn away, forced himself to keep going, dragging the possessor back out by whatever means he had to continue the interrogation.

Jim had been right, he thought, wiping the palms of his hands over the soft leather that encased his legs several times. Those memories could not be released or ignored. And when he'd leaned close, when he'd let the hellspawn touch him in return, the depravity it'd shown him in his own soul could never be cleansed.

"What did it mean, Abely?" he whispered. "Feeding the infant?"

At the other hunter's silence, John opened his eyes and turned his head. "Feeding Sammy what?" he asked.

Abely's jaw muscle bunched as he kept his gaze fixed to the dark road. "I don't know, John," he told him, his voice low and harsh.

Neither could voice their fear. The demon had said that the fallen was turning human children into his children. Turning them into demons?

"Demons are created from hundreds of years of torture, John," Abely said, his hands flexing on the wheel as he struggled to find an answer, knowing what John was thinking, what he was afraid of. "The human soul twisted into darkness from a diet of pain. There's no way that any demon, human or fallen, can change that – the soul is too powerful."

"Even a child's?"

"Especially a child's," Abely said firmly.

Silence grew between them again, filled with the things that they couldn't talk about.

* * *

_**January 27, 1989. Blue Earth, Minnesota.**_

Dean watched Abely and his father obliquely through the reflection of the glass of the window pane. Both were grimy and tired-looking, and he didn't think he'd imagined that Abely had held Millie longer than he usually did when he returned from a hunt or a trip. He didn't think he'd imagined the flickering expression that he'd seen on his father's face when John had watched his partner enfold Millie in his arms either. His father had turned away almost immediately, ruffling Sammy's hair and smiling at them both, his voice slightly gruff as he'd asked about the birthday celebrations they'd missed.

He'd tried not to stare, but he'd looked for the differences, the ones that had filled the dream he'd had. His father's face was drawn, new lines bracketing his mouth. He couldn't see the darkness that had woken him, sweating and shaking, though. Just a dream, he told himself, another hinky dream and nothing more.

"You boys need to get packed," John told them, leaning against the door-frame. "We're going to Wayne in the morning."

It should've been good news. A chance to see Caleb, to see Gil, maybe. Hear what was happening in the world. But the news filled him with a sense of foreboding and he nodded, pushing his little brother out of the room and up the stairs to get started, without the usual pleasurable rush of excitement at the prospect of a trip.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked when Dean followed him into his bedroom and reached up to get his brother's travelling bag down from the shelf in the closet.

"Nothing."

He looked around at Sam's uncharacteristic silence, seeing the little boy staring at him, his eyes round and his face solemn.

"Just … I'm just tired today, Sammy," he said, softening his tone as he put the bag on the bed.

"Why?"

He hated Sam's incessant flow of questions. The questions themselves weren't the problem. The problem was that he often had to lie to his little brother and it never felt right.

"Had a bad dream last night," he said. It wasn't a lie. He'd had them three nights in a row and hadn't gotten more than a couple of hours of restful sleep since his birthday. "I couldn't get back to sleep for a while."

Sam nodded understandingly. He knew about bad dreams.

"You could sleep here tonight?" he offered, waving a hand at his bed. "I won't mind."

Glancing at the bed, Dean wondered if he'd sleep better here, just for a night. "I might do that, Sammy," he said consideringly. "In the meantime, let's get you packed up ready for tomorrow, okay?"

Relieved that the offer had been thought about, Sam nodded quickly and turned for his bureau, opening the bottom drawer and pulling out a handful of clothing. "What do I take?"

Dean chewed on his lip. He wasn't sure how long they'd be staying. "Enough for a week," he decided. "Warm stuff."

He turned around as the bedroom door opened and Millie came in, smiling at them. "I'll help Sammy with his things, Dean," she said, walking to the bureau and opened another drawer. "Get your belongings together, your father wants to leave before first light."

He nodded, throwing a checking glance at Sam. His little brother adored Millie and was happily standing beside her, looking through his clothes. Walking out of the room and down the hall, he wondered if Millie was coming as well. She and Ellen seemed to have resolved their differences, the last time she'd made the trip. He felt an uncomfortable yearning for them all to stay together, for a while, at least. His father was more relaxed when Millie was near, he knew. More able to laugh, and he had the feeling that he needed that now, more than he ever had before.

Looking around his room as he pushed the door open, he thought about what he needed. Not much. He'd take the armour and the glasses and his weapons, he thought, crossing the room to the blanket box at the foot of the bed and pulling out his bag and the vest, tucking it into the bottom. His stomach dropped a little when he opened the closet door and saw the suit. It was better than the other one but he knew he'd have to get dressed up every night for dinner at Ellen's and the thought made him sigh. There was too much to do to worry about conforming to the dumb etiquette of a quieter time, he thought irritably.

The memory of his first dinner there returned and he wondered if he would see Saffron. She was the Keeper now. Would she remember her past or would she be like the other one, who'd seemed less and more than human?

Behind him, the door opened and he turned around, seeing his father standing there, his face half in shadow, the hallway light brighter to one side. The shadow brought back a memory and he swallowed nervously, his gaze cutting away from the man.

"You got everything, Dean?"

"Yessir," he said quietly, the tension in his neck easing as John took a couple of steps into the room and the overhead light hit his face evenly, wiping away the shadow. "Are we going to see Gil?"

"Yeah," John said absently, walking to the bed and looking at the small pile of things ready to be packed away. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked back at his son.

"Everything okay here while we were gone?"

"Sure," Dean said, turning back to the closet and lifting out the grey suit, and a couple of shirts. "Emerson's recovering. Mina said he'll be on his feet in a day or two."

"That's good," John said, nodding. "Good to hear."

Packing the clothes on top of his vest, Dean stared down at the bag. "Did you find any sign of demons?"

John didn't answer for a moment, and Dean waited, his heart pounding against his ribs.

"No, they're all gone," his father said, getting up and letting his hand rest lightly on Dean's shoulder. "Cleaned out as far south as Oklahoma."

"Anything, um, happen on the trip?"

"Nothing special," John said slowly. "We'll see how everyone else went when we get to Wayne."

"Yes, sir." Dean looked up at his father, brows drawing together a little. "You look tired."

Seconds passed as John looked back at him, then he shook his head. "Yeah, it was a long haul back up here, son."

"Are you alright?"

"Sure," John said, looking closely at his son. "Yeah, I'm fine." He stepped away, looking around the room. "Get packed up before dinner."

"Yessir."

* * *

"I'll head out straight away," Abely said, tucking his food into one cheek as he looked around the table. He stopped chewing as he took in the surprise on the faces around him. "Abe's still worried about Rufus and I told him I'd stop in, next time we're over that way."

John frowned at his plate. "Millie going with you?"

"No, I need to go fast," the older hunter said with an apologetic smile at his wife. "I'll just keep the side trip to Abe's quick."

Swallowing his mouthful, he added diffidently, "You checking in with Jim before you go?"

"I'll see him and Emerson when we get back," John told him, a slight edge to his voice tacitly warning to go no further with that line of conversation.

Sitting across the table from his father, Dean heard the cross-currents between the two men as he kept his gaze on his plate. He had the distinct sense that there were two conversations going on at the same time, one everyone could hear, the other silently played out between Abely and his father. Sneaking a sideways look at Millie, he saw her mouth compress slightly and realised she could hear that too.

For all his father's casual assertions that he was fine, he thought she hadn't believed him either. There were lines on his face that hadn't been there before he'd left. There were hollows around his eyes that hadn't been there. And he'd seen a shadow, darkening the dark green eyes that were like his own, some memory or thought or feeling that he thought his father hadn't had before he and Abely had gone south. That shadow made him uneasy. It made some of the expressions on John Winchester's face seem sly.

He dropped his fork onto the china plate, stammering an apology as every head turned to look at him with the dreadful clatter, keeping his gaze fixed on his food and trying to get rid of the thoughts that were more like dreams, half-seen, half-felt fears flitting through his mind.

"You all right, Dean?" Millie asked quietly when his brother and the men had resumed eating.

Dean looked up and nodded at her, his mouth full of food, the concern in her face both reassuring and frightening him. He wanted her there, but at the same time, he could see that she was as worried as he was. Which meant it wasn't just in his head, he realised, looking back at his food and hurriedly filling another forkful. It meant that he was right to feel worried.

* * *

Millie sat against the piled pillows of the bed, watching John undress, the hard curves and planes of his heavily muscled body gleaming faintly with perspiration in the light of the nightstand lamp, his movements jerky and sudden.

"What is it?" she asked as he turned toward her, half his face in shadow. "What happened down there, John?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," he said. His voice was deep, a little harsh and she felt a flicker of doubt as he walked to the bed.

The mattress dipped with his weight then he was beside her, his expression entirely hidden now by the lamplight behind him, one hand curling around the nape of her neck, the other fumbling with the satin ribbon lacing of her nightgown as he leaned over her and kissed her hungrily, not giving her room to move back, or to breathe. She felt the bodice of the gown tear as he lost patience, the material cutting into her when he dragged the front apart and his fingers dug into her breasts, pinching the nipples hard.

Between the two men she loved, John had been the more sensual, taking his time and more often leaving her aching and impatient for him, for a release from the throbbing arousal he brought. Abely was thoughtful and caring but less inclined to explore the limits of desire. Now, she was pushed onto her side, John's mouth moving down her neck, grazing her skin with his teeth, his hand sliding down her back and thrusting between her legs.

"John – wait, no, I'm not ready –"

"Sssshhhhh," he said, teeth closing hard suddenly on her shoulder as his hand slid under her neck and curled over her mouth.

His fingers pushed hard, forcing their way inside, burning and painful on dry skin as he opened her and she struggled against him, feeling the hand clench tightly over her mouth and jaw as he dragged her back against him. One arm curled protectively over her belly, she couldn't get past the shock of what he was doing, this man, whom she loved, who was the father of her child. He pushed deeper and she closed her eyes tightly, feeling a sob rising through her chest, less physical than emotional, unwilling to believe he would hurt her, unable to fight back against his strength.

* * *

Dean twisted around, caught in the bed linen, his arm flying out as he fought against the dream.

"_Sssssssssssshhhh," his father said, and he saw Millie struggling, his father holding her down, holding his hand over her mouth, saw the shock and pain in her face._

"_No! Dad! No!"_

Sitting up in the bed, he kicked his way free of the covers, his pyjamas damp and clinging to him with sweat, breath rasping in his chest as he staggered from his bed and ran to the door.

The big house seemed silent, but he couldn't believe it, feet thudding against the long runner of carpet that covered the hallway floor, his hand finding the big brass door handle in the dark unerringly. He twisted it and threw the door open, swallowing against the mix of fear and shame and anger that had driven him here as he looked at the two people on the big bed.

Millie sat beside his father, her arms wrapped around him as he hunched over the edge.

"Are you alright?" Dean said, what he thought would come out as a demand, barely a whisper.

Looking at him, Millie nodded, drawing the bed sheet around John as Dean's gaze cut away.

"It's okay, Dean," she whispered back and Dean looked at them again, seeing the shudders that were shaking his father, shaking the bed. John's face was turned away from him, shoulders bowed, the muscle standing out in bold relief lit by the lamplight.

"We're alright, sweetheart," she added as he stood there unmoving. "Go back to sleep."

He nodded uncomfortably and stepped back, catching the door with one hand and drawing it closed as he backed out of the room. His heart was still pounding against his ribs, at the base of his throat and against his ears. He didn't know what he'd seen in the dream, only that it had seemed like his father was hurting Millie, and he couldn't shut that image out.

Walking back toward his room, he veered into the bathroom as he passed the door, flicking on the light. The mirror above the sink was big, and old-fashioned, the reflective backing silvery and slightly distorted. Dean turned on the tap and filled his hands with the running water, splashing it over his face and hair, feeling it run down his neck and soak the collar of his pyjama top. The images were fading and he turned off the tap and stared at his reflection. The dream hadn't been all the way right, he thought, barely noticing the way his brows had drawn together in the mirror. His father had stopped. Maybe it meant that the others hadn't been all the way right either.

He couldn't think about why he was having dreams like that at all. The way Emerson's attention had sharpened on him, when he'd mentioned having the dream about the marsh, made him feel as if the differences in him, between him and other people, were growing, not lessening.

* * *

_**January 31, 1989. Wayne, Nebraska**_

John stared at the delicate gold-flocked wallpaper that covered one wall of Gil's study, not seeing it, or the stacks or towers or piles of books, notes, instruments, apparatus, experiments and assorted unidentifiable devices that covered most of the surfaces in the generously proportioned room.

In his mind, he saw Millie, struggling against his grip. Felt the nauseating surges of disgust that the memory brought each and every time. And the fear of the ideas, of the images and feelings that were still lurking at the edge of his consciousness when he was alone in the dark.

"John," Gil said gently.

John turned his head slowly to look at the inventor, flinching inwardly at the concern on Gil's face.

"Yeah, that's what it said, Gil," he told him. "What the hell does it mean?"

"I don't know," Gil replied honestly, taking his spectacles off and cleaning them absently with the corner of his handkerchief. "We have little lore on hellspawn, most of it ancient." He put the glasses back on. "How close did you have to get to get the information?"

John looked away. "Close."

"What happened?"

"What happened," Jim said from the door, Mae standing behind him. "is that John put his soul into the deepest peril."

"Mae, we'll take tea at four," Gil said, his gaze flicking behind the priest to his housekeeper. She nodded stiffly and stepped back and Jim smiled at her as he closed the door gently.

"What are you doing here?" John asked brusquely.

"I came when I was told of what you did," Jim said mildly, walking around the sofa and taking a seat next to him on it.

"Abely swore –"

"I didn't hear from Abely," Jim said. "Two people very dear to me came to see separately. Both were worried about you."

John frowned at him. "Millie and –?"

"And Dean," Jim said. "There are reasons we never deal with hellspawn, John. They're good reasons. The stain of evil spreads quickly and inserts itself insidiously into the human heart. You haven't felt the same, have you?"

His mouth thinning, John turned away. Gil looked from him to Jim.

"Did you even find what you were looking for?" Jim asked sourly.

"It said that Mary made a deal," John's voice cracked and he ducked his head, pressing his hand hard against his temple. "Said that she was killed because she interrupted the demon while it was feeding Sam something. It said –" He looked around at the priest. "It said the demon was changing human children into its children."

Jim's face paled, but he kept his gaze fixed on John's. "Demons lie, John."

"You think those were lies?" John raised his head to stare bleakly at him. "Mary was killed."

"And you hurt Millie," Jim said uncompromisingly.

"I didn't – I stopped," John burst out, his face screwing up with the memory.

"This time," Jim agreed coldly. "What about the next time, when it's stronger, John? What about when it hits when you're worried or angry and you can't stop?"

"No, I –" John's voice dropped to a breath.

"You need to come with me," Jim said, glancing at Gil. "Emerson and Mina are waiting outside," he added to the inventor. "They'd like to see you."

Gil nodded, getting to his feet. "John, I think you need to go with Jim. He's had experience with this and I have not," he said, holding his hand out to the man. "Give me some time, I'll see what I can find out, and Emerson and Mina as well. They have more information on the Accursed Plane than any one else here."

"Don't – don't tell them –" John looked up at him, taking his hand and letting Gil pull him to his feet.

Jim shook his head and Gil looked back at John. "Academic case study only," he agreed warily. "For now."

"Come on, John," Jim said, turning for the door. "We have a lot of work to do."

* * *

_**February 4, 1989. Wayne, Nebraska.**_

Ellen looked around the dining room, the corners of her mouth tucked in as she let her gaze roam across the table, deeply satisfied. Everyone she cared about was here, in their best and brightest, talking and eating and laughing and for the first time in a long time, looking relaxed and comfortable.

Emerson was still thin and pale, the burns healing slowly, skin shiny but no longer an angry-looking red. She knew better than to follow her instincts and try to mother him, Mina didn't get more than a couple of feet from him at any time and her gaze flicked across to him every few minutes, as focussed as that of a hawk. He sat with Gil, the two men's head bent close together, their expressions serious.

Bobby Singer sat at the far end of the table, rust-coloured beard trimmed close along his jaw, his head bare and just starting to show threads of silver among the deep chestnut. He was leaning close to Trish Fortense, and she wondered absently if he was enjoying the view of the hunter's tightly squeezed creamy cleavage. If he was, she thought, he wasn't showing it. With Lorena's death, the Council member had been brought back from Idaho, to take her place at the head of the Council. She was, in her own words, an uncompromising bitch, and the Council was treading very quietly indeed since her return.

Next to Bobby, Delia and Corn were arguing without heat, more than likely over Delia's latest purchase from the inventor, a gun that had been the source of contention between the newer generation of hunters and the older for a couple of months now.

A burst of laughter from the smaller table on the fire side of the dining room drew her attention and she smiled indulgently at the children sitting there, her daughter in their midst. Hunter's children, most of them, those who weren't were apprenticed to hunters, or fostered by hunting families. Saffron's place had been taken by another girl, a couple of years younger. Caleb was sitting with Saul and Mickey on one side, Dean and little Sammy on the other, the oldest boy chafing at still being at the children's table, his gaze going frequently to Delia, who remained oblivious to his interest. Frances was next to Jo and Morgan next to Sam. Alison, Noah and Seamus had been fostered with Delaney the last month only. Like flowers in a garden, they were dressed in bright colours, except for Dean, who wore the gunmetal grey dulled silk suit like a uniform.

"No," Abely's voice said, cutting through her observations. "COG's gone, further south, I guess, but gone completely from every state north of Oklahoma."

"How long for?" Trish asked, lifting her voice as she turned to look up the table.

"They won't be back," Walt said. "We torched their strongholds and pushed them back. Know their welcome here is over."

Ellen caught the exchanged look between her husband and Jim. She didn't believe it would be that easy either, but she was careful to keep her face expressionless.

"They won't give up." Moses looked at Walt. "They'll be back when they've drummed up support again."

"Then they'll have to come with an army," the heavily-built hunter retorted. "No one in those cities is gonna let them in now. Even if they hadn't gotten an eyeful of the possessions –"

"Speculation at this stage is probably not worth the time or effort given," Jim interrupted, his voice mild but firm. "We've got people in position, we'll know the next time they come."

"So what now?" Delia asked, her gaze flicking from Jim to Ellen.

"Business as usual," Bobby growled. "An' who's hogging the brandy up that end?"

The hunters returned to their meal, and the low buzz of private conversations filled the table again. Ellen leaned closer to Bill.

"Is the Council calling another meeting?"

"Trish says not," he answered, his voice low. "The Keeper is staying here, for awhile anyway. She says the danger has passed. The demons she saw are no longer in her visions."

* * *

Dean listened with half his attention to the conversation between Caleb and Saul, distractedly stabbing his food and eating when he noticed it clinging to the end of his fork. He was also watching the adults at the other table, relieved to see his father smiling and talking naturally, laughing as Millie leaned close and whispered to him. He'd been with Jim for four days, and had emerged from the small stone church down at the other end of the town thinner, his skin pale and bruised-looking around the eyes and under the cheekbones, but himself again, the darkness that had seemed to lurk behind his eyes gone. He'd _felt_ different, Dean remembered, when he'd come to the roadhouse and crouched down in front of them, arms opened wide and enfolding both him and Sammy in a comforting hug. And with Millie, he'd been deferential and apologetic, trying hard to please her.

Asking Gil the next day, he'd only been told that sometimes, when you looked into the abyss, the abyss also looked into you. He wasn't sure he understood that. Jim had told him that his father had needed to clear his head. He wouldn't say why, or how his father had done that in the four days he'd been away.

He should let it go, he knew. They wouldn't tell him. He was ten years old and nobody told him anything. Not even Mina had let the slightest hint of what had happened slip out.

"Dean, hey," Caleb leaned past Saul. "You coming on the marsh hunt tomorrow?"

His head snapped around as the word registered, a vision of a crooked house and miles of flat, water-logged ground filling his mind's eye. "Where?"

"Couple of miles north of town," Caleb said, frowning at the intensity in the younger boy's expression. "Bobby said he'd take us duck-hunting."

For a moment, it was all Dean could think of, the wide expanses of silver water, gleaming through the tall grasses and a rain-soaked wooden board path.

"Uh …" he hedged, glancing at the other table. John gave a quarter-turn, nodding once. He swallowed a little uncomfortably, wondering how much attention his father had been paying to the conversations behind him. "Uh, yeah, sure."

"We're going at dawn," Caleb added, satisfaction evident in his voice. He'd been asking Delaney about hunting wildlife for the last week, Dean knew. The weapons tutor had finally passed the buck along to Singer, who'd looked surprised then agreed on the proviso that he didn't have to look after anyone under ten.

Dean saw Sam's forehead wrinkle up, ready to protest when Jo beat him to it.

"I go too!"

"No," Ellen snapped the single word from the adult's table without even looking at her daughter. "You have to be ten."

Watching his little brother's mouth open and close again at the pronouncement, Dean ducked his head to hide his smile. The proof that the adults were listening in on all their conversations was far outweighed by the moment of authority that would save him an hour or more of argument with Sam.

* * *

John looked around the parlour as he sat in the comfortable armchair near the fire and accepted a snifter of Ellen's Courvoisier gratefully. Millie and Abely shared the smaller sofa, Bobby, Bill and Ellen took the larger and Jim sat in the armchair opposite him.

"So, half the cities are dead, people who survived moving out, running to find someplace that don't remind them of what they seen." Bobby said, downing half the cognac in a gulp as he looked around the circle of hunters.

"Don't know if that makes our job harder or easier," Abely agreed mildly. "We need to keep at least some of the cities clear of ghouls and wraiths and the like."

"How?" Ellen leaned forward, her sherry-coloured eyes almost golden in the combination of lamplight and firelight. "There's few enough of us left now."

"As best as we can, Ellen. Jefferson'll be back from California in another week, we'll start training properly again," Jim told her, gaze flicking once to Bill and back to his wife. "We've never had much in the way of numbers."

"What about the demons? They took over those governments, through that religious group. How do we counter that if it happens again?" Ellen snapped, smoothing out the silk skirt of her dress fussily. "Demons were not allowed here. Now there are hundreds. How did the Fallen escape – was he let out or did he punch through?"

"Even the messenger didn't know that, honey," Bill said quietly. "And there's no precedent, even in the times before –"

"That's my point!"

Listening to them, John realised how much more he should've asked the demon while it was held and bound. He let the thought go immediately. What he had asked, what he'd needed to know, had invaded his mind so deeply he'd thought he'd never get rid of it, despite the help of the priest and the scholar. He certainly never wanted to go through the pain and humiliation of those rituals again.

The images that had filled him were just images now, static and barely touched with feeling. The devouring emotions that had accompanied them, that had driven and scourged him, were gone.

"There were six families that we could locate in five cities in the north-eastern states" Jim said, looking at the fire. "And John's. All attacked in the same way."

"And?" Bill frowned at him, his expression echoed on Ellen's face. "What did you find out?"

"We didn't know what it meant," Jim said with an apologetic shrug. "We still don't. But Emerson thinks that there are probably more."

"Who weren't attacked, 'cos the parents didn't interrupt the demon at his work," Bobby said slowly, looking at Jim. "You think we can find 'em if there's no record of a fire or a death?"

"No. I don't," Jim said, his breath escaping in a soft exhale. "I asked the Keeper if she could see the children, see if they were different."

He didn't tell them that he and John had Sammy to her. The Keeper had touched the little boy and shaken her head.

"And were they?" Bobby looked at him, pushing his cap back off his forehead.

"No," Jim said, shaking his head. "She couldn't see them at all."

"So mebbe, that demon was lying," Bobby mused, not looking at anyone. "That'd be a shocker."

"Or maybe the change is invisible at this stage," Jim countered, finishing his brandy. "We've got people to watch those families."

"We're not going to find out anything more about this ourselves," Abely said, glancing around the room, his eyes resting on John a moment longer than anyone else. "We know that. Trish asked me to draw up some rough ideas on who can be asked to help with training and with doing regular sweeps of the cities. I could use some help with that."

John felt his chest tighten momentarily. He knew that there was nothing he could do for the moment, that the game had been hidden by the players and there were no leads to follow, no knowledge to be found right now.

"_This … plan … of the demon's, John, it's a long view," Emerson had said in the little church. "We will search for the answers, and for the signs that were seen by the Keeper around the demon's coming. You're not alone any more. Please, trust us to help."_

He shook his head slightly. He did trust them, and he knew that he had others he could trust, with his life, with his soul even, to help him find what had happened to Mary, and what had been done to his youngest son. He would have to learn to be patient. That was all.

* * *

_**February 5, 1989.**_

Dean trudged through the sloppy mix of mud and water, the shotgun held in the crook of his elbow, his shoulders hunched against the fine rain. Beside him, Caleb's footsteps splashed steadily, the older boy muttering from time to time under his breath when he broke through a section of ice and into a colder pool of water.

It wasn't the marsh. Not the right one. The one from his dreams. That had spread for miles and miles, this one was barely a couple of miles across, edged on all sides by woodland, bare and forlorn-looking at the moment.

"I heard about Miz Curdy, Dean," Caleb said in a low voice, slowing down a little as the younger boy turned to him. "She took her kids to a relative's place, somewhere in Pennsylvania."

Sucking his lower lip over his teeth, Dean thought of Moss and Olivia. "Hunters?"

Caleb glanced at him and shook his head. "No, civilians."

They walked along the bog edges, following the others. Teal and pintail and red duck were plentiful in the playa marshes and everyone had managed to bag at least a brace to take back to the roadhouse and provide a welcome change from beef and mutton.

The dreams had stopped. Not just the nightmares he'd had been having lately, but even the recurring marsh dream had stopped completely. For the last five nights, he'd slept through without waking, and each morning there'd been no dread at what the day would bring, just a sense that it was all okay. He had no idea what that meant. He wanted to ask someone but he couldn't bring himself to talk about what he had dreamed of, and there was a sneaking feeling of relief that he might just be able to forget about that stuff now, push it aside and get back to the business of learning to hunt with no other considerations.

"Abely asked me to go out with him and your dad, at the end of the month," Caleb said, sliding another sideways glance at the boy walking next to him. "They're doing a sweep through Omaha."

Tucking his chin against his chest, Dean made noncommittal noise at the back of his throat. Every one of the trainees, fifteen and older, was accompanying the hunters on what would be regular checks of the cities that had been hit hardest by the demons, keeping them clean of creatures that might take up residence if the towns were left empty and deserted for too long. The consensus had been it would be a good training exercise, providing both familiarity with the towns and the procedures of ensuring they were kept free of danger, within the protection of experienced hunters.

"It won't be that long before you're on it too," Caleb offered at Dean's continued silence. "Delaney already says you're a better hunter than Mitch or Candice."

Damned with faint praise, Dean thought sourly. The two teenagers were barely able to hit a target less than twenty feet away.

"Yeah," he said finally, forcing himself add a casual shrug.

They would be heading back to Blue Earth at the end of the week, Emerson and Mina travelling with them. He'd be getting back to doing the extra study with Mina. He frowned a little at the thought. It wasn't that the stuff she gave him wasn't interesting. A lot of it was. But it made him restless, reading about the lore of the creatures, about hunters in the distant past and what they found, instead of being out there, doing it himself. Gone or not, the dreams had left a residue, somewhere deep inside of him, a feeling that he had to stay close to his father and to his brother, that they needed him there, watching out for them.

He sucked in a lungful of the cold damp air impatiently. The tangle of feelings, fierce protectiveness and the heavier load of responsibility, were accompanied by a frisson of doubt. He could protect his little brother, could keep him safe, put himself in front of anything that threatened Sammy … but his father didn't need it. His father was one of the most respected hunters in the small community at Wayne. He could handle whatever came at him.

"Penny for 'em," Caleb said, and Dean turned to look at him.

"Just wondering if you'll make it back alive," he said, adding a derisory note to his tone.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious," Caleb shot back. Dean grinned at him.

They had a week here with no particular responsibilities, and his father had promised to take him on the next salt and burn. He pushed his thoughts back and down, looking around as the sun broke through the mists rising from the water and turned the world to a nacreous silver-gold. He should be enjoying this, he thought, shifting the birds he carried to a more comfortable position. The demons had gone. The hunters had done their jobs. People were safe – safer – again.

"Move your asses," Bobby called back to them, his tone sour. "Some of us have work to do."

* * *

**THE END**

_**AN:**__ This series will continue._


End file.
